‘Previously always a gentleman, now he shows his true nature’

Roger Schmidt took a hard look at the KNVB on Sunday, which had rejected PSV’s request to reschedule the game with ADO Den Haag due to the corona cases and the approaching Europa League game with PAOK Saloniki. It was especially important to the trainer that the union only made a decision on Sunday morning at half past eleven, 17 hours after the report of the corona cases. The dissatisfaction expressed from Eindhoven was not to everyone’s taste, as was Sunday evening with the programs Studio Voetbal at the WE and This was the Weekend on FOX Sports clear.

PSV started against ADO with Mauro Júnior and Ryan Thomas as backs. Adrian Fein started in the base for the first time, also because Jorrit Hendrix tested positive for corona on Friday. In midfield and in the attack, Schmidt was still able to line up important names such as Ibrahim Sangaré, Fein, Mario Götze, Mohamed Ihattaren, Donyell Malen and Eran Zahavi. ADO was willingly led to the slaughter and eventually left the Philips Stadium with a 4-0 defeat.

“They only missed three basic players,” Ibrahim Afellay emphasized at the WE. “That was it. It’s a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, Schmidt has also been very critical of the KNVB. And before it was always a gentleman. He has been expressing himself in a certain way in recent weeks. And then I think: Okay, are you showing your true nature now?. Everyone has to deal with corona. PSV only missed three basic players. I’ve seen the game. They might as well have lined up PSV Under-19. ”

The conversation then turned to the possibility of introducing a corona bubble at every club, but according to Pierre van Hooijdonk, Theo Janssen and Jeroen Stekelenburg, this was almost impossible to realize for financial and human reasons, and certainly not for weeks. For example, the hotel staff were not allowed to go home during the training camp of the Dutch national team and the players were forbidden to get a key at the reception. “Those guests may also have children or they just want to be with their family. Otherwise you will spend six weeks with your teammates ”, Janssen shook his head.

“If you know in advance that you have a very tough program ahead of you”, Afellay referred to the top duels in the Eredivisie in January. “Then you imagine yourself program on in. At PSV, for example, they apparently don’t have everything in order internally. There are so many infections there, they may have to look for it within themselves. Something is just not going well. ” The situation of PSV was also discussed earlier in the evening FOX Sports. “I think PSV is making itself very small”, Kenneth Perez began. “Schmidt’s response, but also Toon Gerbrands’s response. They are rules. The whole world is dealing with this situation. It’s no fun and now PSV has been hit for a while. But yes, you just have to go with it deal.”

“Schmidt did that for a long time. With every question it was simply: ‘It is the way it is’. PSV does not have to come out in this way. Look at Arne Slot. He has had to deal with exactly the same thing at AZ. It has exactly the same program. ” Jan Joost van Gangelen also wondered whether the professional football clubs should not have gone completely into a bubble. “That cannot be done,” Perez emphasized. “You can’t ask those players to be months away from their families.”

Arnold Bruggink pointed out that the international match period does not help either. “Football players from top clubs fly out and come into contact with other guys. You can’t keep them in a bubble if international football continues. ” Perez: “Perhaps there should have been different rules for clubs that play European. It’s also about the tax and the like. And then I hear that Philipp Max and Noni Madueke really can’t play. But in the rest they both come in? PSV knows what the alternative is, ”he may have referred to stopping the competition. “If you keep whining, you know what’s going to happen.”