The Brabant derby against Willem II was won by PSV. With 4-2 the Tilburgers were put aside. With three games to go, the team still remains in the lead of leader Ajax.
Lightning start
The Philips Stadium was the setting for a Brabant derby in the Eredivisie. Willem II visited in search of three points, and PSV went all out to keep them at home. The team made it easy for themselves by scoring at lightning speed. After an excellent deep pass from Ibrahim Sangaré, Cody Gakpo passed the ball to Philipp Max. He laid the ball wide to Doan who tapped it into the net: 1-0 after 2 minutes. For a moment, VAR thought it was offside, but referee Jochem Kamphuis did not go along with that. Willem II was put under fire. The second big chance came from the feet of Gakpo. After some fine footwork, the striker lashed out, but his shot hit the post. Max also tried his luck from distance, but to no avail.
Goal celebration
Willem II was still in the thick of the relegation battle. Just when the visitors stepped up the pace, Gakpo shattered their dream. Mauro JR's cross was right on target and so the Eindhoven native signed for his 19th of the season. Gakpo was almost important again with a sharp cross to Carlos Vinícius, but the striker was a toe length short. Unfortunately, more bad luck came for the Brazilian, an injury forced him to leave the field early in the match. Bruma came into the lines as a replacement. For a moment the momentum seemed completely gone, as Willem II scored and on paper was back in the game. Eran Zahavi, however, did not like that. The Israeli striker, like Gakpo, signed for his 19th goal of the season.
Over and over again
PSV had dealt some hefty punches to the visitors in the first half. At halftime, they had licked their wounds to make it immediately clear in the second half that they had not given in yet. Via a bouncing, low cross, they once again got back into the game. The crowd knew it had to get behind Schmidt's team at this very moment. Veerman tried to respond quickly with a shot from distance, but without success. Then it was the turn of Bruma, who managed to find the net, but he was whistled back for offside. It was Willem II who brought the tension back, but also wiped out again themselves. A back pass from Wessel Dammers did not go as expected and ended up in his own goal. A motivated PSV fought for more goals. Through Doan and Bruma there were opportunities, but a real moment of chance was a while in coming.
Final phase
Tilburg's counter football from the first half had given way to ball possession. Or an attempt to, as Ibrahim Sangeré captured ball after ball, Bruma constantly looked for depth and Doan fired several shots. Marco van Ginkel and, later, Richy Ledezma still came into the lines for a boost. Gakpo was still lurking for his 20th goal of the season. For a moment he looked like he was going to score one when a deep ball was not handled well by Wellenreuther. Again there were plenty of corner kicks and fierce moments from PSV, but it did not yield an additional goal. Fortunately, Willem II was also unable to create any more danger. The result was 4-2 and PSV took all three points after a game rich in goals.
