What are you going to do after a weekend of partying and a midweek fairy tale of 1001 nights in the Arabian summer? Then you go to the Zuiderpark in The Hague. Well park. It was more like a plain and then also a plain that wasn't actually flat at all. Everything was twisted and shifted but still not right. So in The Hague we play on artificial turf.
This is where our competitors have lost points in recent weeks so we have been warned.
It also seems like jet lag. Jetlag? Yes jetlag. This is a disruption of the sleep-wake rhythm that occurs when a person travels in a short period of time to a place on earth where, according to local time, it is substantially earlier or later than at the place of departure. It is most inconveniently experienced when one makes an eastward move.
So we can't have that excuse because we went the other way this past week. But still a dullness or languidness came over the team in the first half, making the tempo much too slow and also not keeping to assignments and again doing all kinds of things we didn't agree on. It could also just be the transition from winter sleep to spring fatigue. In any case, the weather is right for it.
At halftime, the coach does his talk and it is a good thing that ADO is getting a new complex and that there are already cracks in the walls, otherwise they would have moved in by now.
After the break we are a bit brighter and we do get some chances but now it also appears why ADO is taking points the last few games. They work like horses.
Still we have to wait until the 63rd minute before the ball is headed back to Martijn after a cross from the left by Moussa and he scores. 0 - 1.
We now get some opportunities but ADO also pushes. Just before half time ADO's striker sees a chance to pop the ball over the fence and put it on the main pitch while standing a meter in front of our goal line. Zeus is also very alert again today to the opponent's shots.
And then after finally 97 minutes the referee whistles for the last time and we take home the three points only to find upon returning home, jet-lagged, that the competition has lost points. So we are still doing well and the train thunders on. To...... . Who knows what goodies lie at the finish line.
Next week AZ another tough hurdle on our way. Good luck and goodbye.
PS. for the trainer: the word skip is not translatable in t Czech. It will have to be replaced by another word.


de la Paz, Verstraaten (46th Lamers), Loof, Alberto, Mateju, Mahmoed, Sanoh (90th Groenendijk), Baysal, Wouters (61st Berden), Rommens, Hiwat (73rd Junior).