Football Season Guide

Roda JC will make a start to the Eredivisie season 2016/2017 with a new coach and a host of new players, compared to the second half of the previous season. Coach Darije Kalezic managed to keep Roda JC in the Eredivisie by finishing the season at the 14th spot, but he was not given the chance to improve in the upcoming season, as a conflict between him and the management of the club resulted in his dismissal. The new Roda JC coach is Yannis Anastasiou, the Greek striker who played for Roda JC for four seasons during his active career, before he was transferred to Ajax. Anastasiou has gained some experience having been the coach of Panathinaikos in Greece and he will now make his debut as a coach in the Eredivisie. Because of the fact that Roda JC added a lot of players to their squad, during the winter break of the previous season, on loan from other clubs, the squad will look quite a lot different in the upcoming season. Roda JC also let some of their players gain more experience at for example MVV Maastricht and Fortuna Sittard during the previous season and several of those have returned to Kerkrade this summer. Still Roda JC have managed to add a few experienced players to their squad, like for example Roel Brouwers, who played in the German Bundesliga for eight years at Borussia Mönchengladbach. Adil Auassar and Christian Kum have come over from Excelsior and FC Utrecht respectively, while Mikhail Rosheuvel left SC Cambuur after their relegation to play for Roda JC. Some shopping has also been done in Germany, where Frederic Ananou and Dani Schahin were found. They were taken over from 1. FC Köln and FSV Mainz 05 respectively. Kristoffer Peterson and Mike van Duinen have returned to FC Utrecht and Fortuna Düsseldorf respectively, after they only played half a season for Roda JC on loan from those clubs. Strikers Maecky Ngombo, Tomi Juric and Rydell Poepon have decided to make a new step in their careers outside the Netherlands. The same goes for midfielders Georgi Zhukov, Ugur Inceman and Rostyn Griffiths and defenders Jordy Buijs and Martijn Monteyne. The new coach Anastasiou will be facing an interesting challenge to create a decent team out of all those new players.