The report

In mid-December, PSV O15 played its penultimate game before the winter break. Opponent was ADO Den Haag. An opponent that the team of trainers Edwin de Wijs and Anthony Lurling will not meet in league after the winter break. After all, together with Volendam, the Hagenezen did not qualify for the championship pool.

PSV created a few opportunities in the early stages, but underplayed to make things difficult for the guests. ADO played freely and had dangerous weapons in it with its fast forwards. In the 21st minute, the guests took the lead when they took advantage of a sloppiness in PSV's build-up: 0-1. Shortly after the opening goal, PSV had two opportunities to quickly come alongside. First, Sven Simons sent Jaivy Lourens deep on the left, who passed the ball hard after a good individual action. Just before Jesper Uneken had the ball to go in, an ADO player kicked the ball out of the goal mouth. A minute later Jesper beat the goalkeeper in the air after a high cross from Julian Kuijpers. Unfortunately, he could not give the ball the right direction. After half an hour of play it was still 1-1. Milan Govaers got behind the ball from a free kick on the left flank. He sliced the ball beautifully and Jesper headed in. That was not the end of the story before halftime. After long ball possession on the PSV side, Jaivy received the ball. He dribbled into the penalty area, crossed the ball and saw his cross hit the hand of a Hagenees player, after which the excellent referee awarded a penalty to PSV. Ruben van Bommel took care of the penalty and scored the 2-1 in a controlled manner.

After halftime, PSV quickly built the lead. Once again Jaivy was at the base of the goal. He picked up the ball around the center line and sprinted out of his opponent. From the back line he then served Ruben who very easily put the 3-1 on the scoreboard. In the 47th minute Ruben scored his third goal of the afternoon. This time it was Sven who crossed the ball with his "chocolate right" after which Ruben shot the ball hard with his left. With that the game seemed to be over. But ADO thought otherwise. With 12 minutes to play they brought the score to 4-2 after a strong move by one of the strikers. After Ruben almost found the net again two minutes later, shooting just over after a good long pass from Iggy Houben, the final score was put on the board in the 61st minute. Jesper shot a Ruben cross into the right corner and scored his second goal of the day. The fact that no more goals were scored in the closing stages was down to the two goalkeepers. The ADO goalie parried a Jesper effort. At the other end, Kjell Peersman was alert twice and reacted attentively to efforts from close range.

PSV thus won by large numbers without having played really convincingly. Because of the other results, PSV can even enter the winter break as 'winter champions' on Tuesday. It must then win the catch-up game at and against AZ. This is purely a paper title, because after the (short) winter break all teams in the champions' pool start again with zero points.

Setup:
Kjell Peersman; Seb Loeffen, Luc Netten (c) (53' Yaël Gil y Muinos), Milan Govaers, Julian Kuijpers (53' Koen Jansen); Sven Simons (53' Livano Comenencia), Chahid el Allachi, Shi-Jon Martina; Jaivy Lourens (53' Iggy Houben), Jesper Uneken, Ruben van Bommel.