Football Season Guide

4 years after their last Eredivisie campaign, Go Ahead Eagles are back to the top flight of the Dutch football thanks to a breath-taking second place obtained at the very end of the season due to a better goal difference than De Graafschap. Even though they finished 15 points away from the eventual Eerste Divisie champions, SC Cambuur, and scored 47 goals less than the Leeuwarden outfit, Go Ahead held by far the best defence of the league with just 25 goals conceded. At 52, Kees Van Wonderen, a former Feyenoord defender, won promotion to the Eredivisie in his first experience as head coach and he was unsurprisingly reatined at the helm for the new season. He usually opts for a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-1-3 formation. As predictable, the summer saw the Detincher outfit, which lives on a very tight budget, stripped of some of its best talents. So, goalkeeper Gorter left for Ajax while centre-back Beukema, joint top scorer of the team with 8 goals, was lured away by AZ. Veldmate is also a great loss in defence, together with second-choice right-back Droste, while Hendriks and Robillard, 14 goals and 7 assists overall, will be missed up-front. While they lost several important players, Go Ahead Eagles aim to strengthen themselves obtaining some loans from bigger clubs, like centre-back Kramer, coming from AZ, left-winger Heil, from Hamburg, and signing some free agents, like Bourhane, a talented midfielder who had little chance to shine while at Chamois Niortais. But they also bet on absolute unknown quantities for the Eredivisie, like striker Lidberg, coming from the second tier of Swedish football. With an average age of 24, Go Ahead have one of the youngest teams of the league and this could represent their main risk: the lack of experience all over the pitch. Moreover, with so many players gone, they will need some time before gelling all the new faces together, in all departments.