In the run-up to the cup final, Roger Schmidt noted that he had played against no opponent as often as Ajax with PSV in the past two seasons. And no team has bothered him so much in the past two seasons.
Last season it was a draw between PSV and Ajax twice in the competition and the team of trainer Erik ten Hag became champion by a large margin, while the team from Amsterdam put PSV in the way in the quarterfinals of the KNVB Cup. Although this season started with a 4-0 victory by PSV in the battle for the Johan Cruijff Scale, Schmidt’s first prize in Eindhoven service, it went wrong twice in the Eredivisie. In Amsterdam it even became 5-0 for Ajax, while the 1-2 home defeat had also arrived hard. ‘Give the cup to them today’, Schmidt snapped at the fourth official in frustration, when the arbitration in that game approved Ajax’s winning goal, after it seemed that the ball had crossed the line.
roles reversed
This time the roles were reversed and the frustration was with his Ajax colleague Ten Hag, who was disappointed to find that the VAR twice rejected an Ajax goal because of minimal offside earlier in the attack and wondered “whether the rule is intended for that” . And he complained about not getting a penalty kick.
Small talk between Schmidt and Ramalho.
Pro Shots
Schmidt was seated a little later in the same place where Ten Hag had held his speech with a straight face. The German trainer, who had previously also won the national cup tournament in Austria and China, looked with a blissful smile at the Pine Cone, which was shining in front of him in the light of the lamps in the press room of De Kuip.
,,I think it’s a nice cup. But every prize you win is nice,” said Schmidt, who did not think it was luck that PSV had taken the cup, as Ten Hag suggested. “It is certainly no coincidence. I think we deserved to win. We have always believed in ourselves, showed good football and played with courage. Of course luck also plays a role and we were lucky, but you also need that to beat a good team like Ajax.”
Pride
After the cup final, Schmidt was beaming like never before. ,,I am proud to be the coach of this team. What I’ve seen is unbelievable. All the players have worked so hard, but they also showed very good football. I’m really proud of that. This team had a very intense match against Leicester on Thursday. If you can put this on the mat against Ajax, especially if you also fall 1-0 behind, then that is unbelievable. I love my team for what they showed in this game.”
The starting position of PSV seemed unfavorable beforehand due to the European obligation on Thursday, which meant that Ajax could prepare for the cup final five days longer than the Eindhoven team. ,,We tried to make it an intense game. We wanted to play with guts and put them under high pressure. We couldn’t do that for 90 minutes, but we did a lot. We also won a lot of duels in the first half. And after the break we also scored two good goals. I think we have been rewarded for our brave play.”
Successful season
The season has already ended for Schmidt. “Obviously this season has already been a success. We are second in the league, have already taken a lot of points and are still chasing the title, we have been in the quarterfinals of a European tournament, which was a long time ago for PSV, and it has also been a long time since PSV won the cup and the Super Cup had won. If it’s not a successful season, when will it be? In my opinion it has been fantastic what the players have done this season. And it’s not finished yet.”