Football Season Guide

Willem II had an excellent second half of last season and moved through the gears to end up finishing fourth, having been earlier in mid-table. However, they tripped up in the play-offs at the first hurdle against VVV Venlo and are thus facing up to a second consecutive season in the Eerste Divisie. The ambition of the Tilburg side is to use the momentum generated in the early months of the calendar year and make a lighting start this season, avoiding the costly errors made a year ago that ultimately cost them a spot among the top two. Reinier Robbemond has tried to keep the nucleus of the squad intact but the fact is that Willem II have lost some major players in Elton Kabangu and Jizz Hornkamp up front, and Wesssel Dammers at the back. They still retain the likes of Mathias Verreth and Ringo Meereveld in midfield, and do have respectable quality across the starting 11. Patrick Joosten is a good new addition as he is a player of good Eredivisie experience who should get plenty of goals. Max de Waal is another one who has quality but shown little consistency so far while Austrian defender Raffael Behounek is very much an unknown but may well turn out to be a gem at the back. One glaring area of concern remains right wing-back, Leeroy Owusu has departed for Denmark and Valentino Vermeulen has not really shown so far that he is up to the level needed to replace him. There needs to be more work done to bring the depth up tp the standard required and right now Willem II do look more like a play-off contender than one that is ready to really push for the top two.