Wow! I didn't expect Americans were interested in football, or how you call it; soccer. I'm from Holland so I thought it would be nice to keep you up to date about the Dutch Premier League (eredivisie). It may not be the biggest league around but it is an interesting one, certainly now the whole league is shifting. Old time top teams are crumbling down while new one's are rising.
First I'll teach you some history about the greatest small soccer nation of the world.
The Dutch teams were the most successful in the 70's. Back then there was still the old static football, when the greatest Dutch manager all time, Rinus Michels, invented "totaalvoetbal". This was never seen before, a 4-3-3 system (4 defenders, 3 midfielder and 3 attackers) that would swap positions and quickly played the ball around. Barcelona is one of the teams today that's still using this system.
With this system the Dutch soccer teams dominated the whole world. Ajax Amsterdam lost the Euro Cup I Final(today Champions League) in 1969. Feyenoord Rotterdam won it in 1970 also they won the World Cup in that year. Ajax Amsterdam won the Euro Cup I in 1971, 1972 and 1973. They won the World Cup in 1972 and the European Super Cup in 1972 and 1973. There was also succes in the UEFA Cup (now Euro League), Feyenoord Rotterdam won the cup in 1974, FC Twente Enschede lost the final in 1975 and PSV brought the cup to Eindhoven in 1978.
Back then we had some of the best players in the world, like Johan Cruijff, thanks to the famous Dutch youth academies, that are still one of the best in the world an copied by all the big teams around the world nowadays. The national team (we call it Oranje) was also one of the best teams around, but just not good enough. We lost the World Cup Finals in 1974 and 1978. Especially the loss in 1974 is still a national trauma as we lost from out hatred neighbors and biggest rivals, Germany.
Later on there was still some success for the Dutch teams in Europe, but never it was that good like in the good old 70's. Money grew in the soccerworld and Holland, being a small country, couldn't keep up with the big nations like England, Spain, Italy, France and Germany. Since the end of the 70's only two dutch teams that managed to win the Champions League, PSV Eindhoven in 1988 and Ajax Amsterdam in 1995, losing finalist in 1996 and winner of the World Cup 1996. In the UEFA Cup there was also some success, AZ Alkmaar lost the final in 1981, Ajax Amsterdam won the cup in 92 and Feyenoord was the last Dutch team with European success when they won the UEFA cup in 2002.
The Dutch national team didn't know any success after the 70's until the late 80's. We won the European Championship in 1988 with one of the greatest teams all time. Players like Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and Ronald Koeman. Again some quality products from the Dutch youth academies. Though we didn't win any cups after 88, we did had some success. In the European Championships we made it to the semi-finals in 1992, quarter-finals in 1996, semi-finals in 2000, semi-finals in 2004 and quarter-finals in 2008. In the World Cup we also did pretty well, in 1994 we made the quarter-finals, 1998 semi-finals and in 2010 we lost the final from Spain.
Since the big teams in the big nations got more and more money to spend the dutch teams could only keep up with trying to invest in youth academies and coaches, and this worked. Holland is known for many big soccer talents and excellent coaches that work all over the world. Just think of some dutch players, Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, Rafael van der Vaart, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Edwin van der Sar and Robin van Persie. There are also many good coaches around nowadays, the most famous ones are Guus Hiddink, Louis van Gaal, Dick Advocaat and Frank Rijkaard.
Nederlandse Eredivisie (Dutch Premier League)
The Dutch premier League has 18 teams, and 3 teams are considered to be the top teams. Since 1964 until 2008 only these 3 teams won the national championship (with the exception of AZ Alkmaar in 1981) and are known as "the traditional 3"
National championships: 1918, 1919, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1937, 1939, 1947,1957, 1960, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1990, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2002, 2004
National Cups: 1917, 1943, 1961, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1979, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1993, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2010
National Super Cups: 1993, 1994, 1995, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007
National Championships: 1929, 1935, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
National Cups: 1950, 1974, 1976, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1996, 2005
National Super Cups: 1992, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2008
National Championships: 1924, 1928, 1936, 1938, 1940, 1961, 1962, 1965, 1969, 1971, 1974, 1984, 1993, 1999
National Cups: 1930, 1935, 1965, 1969, 1980, 1984, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 2008
National Super Cups: 1991, 1999
Luckily the Dutch league is changing a bit. the traditional 3 have abandoned the old Dutch philosophy for a while of training youth in a desperate try to keep up with the european top. This made them spending millions on players that weren't actually really good so of course that failed. Right now they're in some financial troubles what forces them to look at their own youth again. Especially Feyenoord is in really big problems and they find themselves at the bottom half of the league. The other teams kept focusing on their own youth and some good scouting and that resulted in championships for AZ Alkmaar in 2009 and FC Twente Enschede in 2010.
Right now the season has just started and Ajax is on top but they're not really playing well, same goes for PSV and Feyenoord, they are way down there. Potential top teams, like FC Groningen and FC Twente are playing very well, but they seem to miss some luck at the big moments or maybe it's just inexperience. Other teams like FC utrecht are not off to a great start, but the season's still young. Utrecht is playing well in Europe though, the knocked Glasgow Celtic out the Euro League and were unlucky in the draws against Napoli and Liverpool.
league standings on this moment
numbers are; games played, won, draw, loss, points, goals for-against
I'll try to get you some updates as the season goes on, if you're interested of course, and I hope it's readable for you, as English is not my native language.