All about the next opponent: interview with Feyenoord podcast Kein Geloel

On match­day four of the Euro­pa League, VfB will host Feye­noord Rot­ter­dam at the Neckar­sta­di­on. Ahead of the clash with the Dutch league lea­ders, we spo­ke with the pod­cast Kein Gel­oel, who had alre­a­dy shared their insights with us when Ramon Hen­driks joi­n­ed the club

With the Red Stri­pe: Hi and thank you for taking time to ans­wer my ques­ti­ons. After three years wit­hout a title, Feye­noord won the Ere­di­vi­sie, the KNVB Beker and the Johan Cruyff Shield con­se­cu­tively. Befo­re the game on Thurs­day, the club is in first place in the league, level on points with PSV. How hap­py are you with the cur­rent situa­ti­on of Feye­noord?

Kein Gel­oel: We are (of cour­se) very hap­py with how things are going. Last sea­son we had an awful sea­son becau­se of an extre­me amount of inju­ries. We used 39 play­ers throug­hout the sea­son, becau­se of that. For that reason we fai­led to qua­li­fy for the Cham­pi­ons League, so it was fair to say we had a bad year. This sea­son the aim is to finish in the top 2 and qua­li­fy for the Cham­pi­ons League. As it looks now, PSV and Feye­noord are cle­ar­ly the best two teams in the ere­di­vi­sie. Of cour­se we want to beco­me cham­pi­ons but quite honest­ly, PSV has the bet­ter squad (and more expe­ri­en­ced coach), so they are still the favo­ri­tes.

Do you see the club win­ning ano­ther title this sea­son?

We real­ly hope so. Right now we are tied, but our goal dif­fe­rence is slight­ly bet­ter. It will be a neck and neck race.

What are the reasons for Feye­noord being top of the league at the moment?

We lear­ned from last sea­son so we built an extre­me­ly deep squad. At mid­field for exam­p­le we have six play­ers who could all argue that they should start every game.

Robin van Per­sie, for­mer Dutch inter­na­tio­nal and born in Rot­ter­dam is the head coach sin­ce Febru­ary. What is his style of play in terms of tac­tics and for­ma­ti­on and how con­tent are you with his appoint­ment?

Robin van Per­sie work­ed with Fer­gu­son and Wen­ger but als Arne Slot when he hel­ped with the first team. His style is offen­si­ve, in which he wants to domi­na­te. Unli­ke Slot, he is a bit more prag­ma­tic and doesn’t play full press throug­hout full games. Ins­tead, our team picks its moments and are also com­for­ta­ble giving the ball to the oppon­ents. Last sea­son Van Per­sie did okay, but he deve­lo­ps a lot and the foot­ball we play gets bet­ter every week.

Aya­se Ueda is your top scorer in the Ere­di­vi­sie with 13 goals in ele­ven games. Who else should we look out for?

Ueda is in top shape. But our best play­er this sea­son is pro­ba­b­ly new­ly signed mid­fiel­der Lucia­no Valen­te. He is a uni­corn mid­fiel­der, in a way that he is very com­for­ta­ble with the ball dribb­ling, has ama­zing pas­sing skills and also the smart­ness to know whe­re he has to go to get the ball in dan­ge­rous posi­ti­on. It will be a mat­ter of time that he will be cal­led up by Hol­land (Or Ita­ly, sin­ce his par­ents are Ita­li­an).

What are the strengths and weak­ne­s­ses of Feye­noord?

Our big­gest strength is pro­ba­b­ly our defen­si­ve. All play­ers (also upfront) defend as a team. This, along with our depth is pro­ba­b­ly our strength. Our weak­ne­ss is pro­ba­b­ly our phy­si­cal con­di­ti­on. We have a lot of inju­ries at the moment again, and have pro­blems finis­hing off games strong.

How hap­py are you with the trans­fers of the sum­mer? Do you see the squad stron­ger than last year?

We are very hap­py with the sig­nings. Valen­te, Stei­jn, Ahmed­hod­zic, Bos, Watana­be are all sig­nings that are regu­lars and shown poten­ti­al. Of cour­se, we also have sig­nings (Teng­stedt, Bor­ges and Diar­ra) who fai­led to make an impact, but over­all: yes, very good sum­mer.

In Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­ons, Feyennoord got eli­mi­na­ted from the Cham­pi­ons League qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on by Fener­bah­ce who we just play­ed. The return leg saw a 2–5 loss in Istan­bul. What hap­pen­ed the­re?

I am afraid we got Mourinho’d. We should have scored more in the home game, and basi­cal­ly becau­se of a hor­ror night for Lotom­ba (he cau­sed three goals), we gave it all away.

Feye­noord and Stutt­gart both have one win and two los­ses so far in the Euro­pa League. How important is the game on Thurs­day, when you also look at the next games against Cel­tic, at Buka­rest, against Graz and at Betis?

Of cour­se we hope to win Thurs­day. But we all see and know how gre­at of a team Stutt­gart is. With espe­ci­al­ly the games bet­ween FCSB, Cel­tic and Sturm, we don’t see this game as a must win! We would sett­le for a point for now haha.

A loss against Aston Vil­la could have been expec­ted, but how much does the loss in Bra­ga on match­day 1 hurt the inter­na­tio­nal ambi­ti­ons?

The loss in Bra­ga was pain­ful, espe­ci­al­ly becau­se they weren’t any bet­ter. Van Per­sie cho­se to play the reser­ves (like ear­lier men­tio­ned Teng­stedt, Diar­ra and Bor­ges) and every body still has the fee­ling we could have easi­ly won the game if Ueda, Read and Watana­be would have play­ed.

About 25 years ago, Stutt­gart and Feye­noord met in four games within two years in the UEFA Cup. Alt­hough it’s been a while, you could con­sider it some­what of a clas­sic. What is the view of Feye­noord fans on Stutt­gart?

We have play­ed each other quite a lot but the­re is no real fee­ling about Stutt­gart. We respect them deep­ly, and like the fact that we can tra­vel by car, but other than that, we don’t real­ly have a posi­ti­ve or nega­ti­ve fee­ling about you guys.

For­mer Feye­noord play­er Ramon Hen­driks has estab­lished hims­elf as a decent Bun­des­li­ga defen­der in Stutt­gart — how do you look back on the trans­fer in retro­s­pect?

We didn’t see it coming that Hen­driks would play so many games for you guys. I guess he could also have play­ed of he had stay­ed with us, but ever­y­bo­dy unders­tood the trans­fer last sea­son becau­se he had a dreadful sea­son on his loan at Vites­se. We hope he does well — except for Thurs­day.

Do you have any inju­red or ban­ned play­ers that can’t play on Thurs­day?

No bans, but basi­cal­ly half the squad is inju­red again. Two goa­lies (Bij­low and Bos­sin), cou­ple of defen­ders, two mid­fiel­ders and also a win­ger.

For many Stutt­gart fans, being away from Euro­pe for over a deca­de, this is the first encoun­ter with Feye­noord — and many other Euro­pean oppon­ents. What can we expect from the away sup­port in the Neckar­sta­di­on?

We will be loud on Thurs­day. Feye­noord fans tra­vel whe­re­ver we play so the away part is fil­led com­ple­te­ly. We are loo­king for­ward to it!

Final­ly: Your guess for the start­ing ele­ven and the result?