After goalkeeper Walter Benitez had duped his team by scrambling for a tenable free kick in Glasgow, PSV was again the victim of a serious personal error. The experienced central defender André Ramalho received the ball in a dangerous place in his own box and let himself be eaten, which made Antonio Colak cheer for the Rangers.
It was the seventh game from the start of the season in which the team of trainer Ruud van Nistelrooy could not keep the zero, a bad series that has not happened in Eindhoven since 1973. It has therefore been a costly error of judgment not to obtain high-quality reinforcement for the defense.
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PSV coach Ruud van Nistelrooy.
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In the stands Guus Hiddink watched how Van Nistelrooy and his team could not meet expectations in the most important game of his early coaching career. Hiddink still has PSV’s two greatest successes in the European Cup I tournament annex the Champions League to his name: winning the Cup with the Big Ears in 1988 and reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2005. PSV has come a long way from that European top level.
Three qualifications
Between 1997 and 2009, PSV played continuously in the Champions League, but only three more qualifications were added in the following twelve years. In that period, it went wrong four times in qualifying: against AC Milan, FC Basel, Benfica last season and now Rangers, which played not very impressively, but took advantage of the vulnerability of PSV and will be active in the championship ball for the first time since 2010. to be. This seemed like the chance for PSV to get rid of the obsession, but it all went wrong.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst encourages the Rangers players.
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The PSV crowd had imagined something completely different about the evening, which had been eagerly anticipated. Before the match, there were already Southern European scenes at the Eindhoven football temple. The PSV team bus was welcomed by a large crowd of fans, who created a special atmosphere with fireworks. Rangers coach Giovanni van Bronckhorst complained before the game about the crowds around the stadium, as a result of which the Scots players’ buses got stuck for twenty minutes. ,,You expect PSV to have everything well organized’, grumbled the ex-Feyenoord coach.
PSV captain Cody Gakpo starts a dribble.
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sloppiness
It was not that bad, which PSV put on the mat in the first half. The opening phase was still good without creating great opportunities, but as always this season, the Van Nistelrooy team gave up the initiative far too easily due to sloppiness in the game. Joey Veerman, who is strong in passing and provides creativity, was not involved enough in the game.
Defensively, PSV was vulnerable in this phase, but due to Scottish inaccuracy in the final phase, Van Nistelrooy’s team managed to survive several predicaments. On the other hand, PSV itself had the necessary opportunities to open the score. On good crosses from Jordan Teze, Luuk de Jong first fell short of a toe length and then encountered goalkeeper Jon McLaughlin. Cody Gakpo, coveted by Manchester United, spooned the ball in a promising position, while Ibrahim Sangaré did not get the ball between the posts with a header chance.
Luuk de Jong was injured in the break.
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Missing such great opportunities often costs a team at European level dearly. PSV was no exception. And Van Nistelrooy’s team also suffered a major setback, because striker De Jong, who was still the savior against AS Monaco, dropped out halfway through with a calf injury. Van Nistelrooy opted for the youth replacement by bringing in Xavi Simons and directing Ismael Saibari to the striker.
After a warning shot from Rangers player Lawrence hit the crossbar, Ramalho duped his team with the big mistake. Van Nistelrooy immediately pulled the defender to the side and went on the hunt for the equalizer with Guus Til and Phillipp Mwene as substitutes, but without De Jong as a point of contact PSV was unable to create much more. The best chance was for Gakpo, whose desire to leave for Manchester United after falling short for Champions League football will only have grown more fervent. Where PSV went through the eye of the needle in the previous round against AS Monaco, there was no such escape this time, leaving participation in the group stage of the Europa League as little consolation.