NOS Football•today, 08:01
What makes this PSV so good? The Eindhoven team was untouchable in the Premier League all season long and in the end it was not a question of if, but when they would win the title. This afternoon (12.15 p.m.) PSV needs a draw against Sparta to win its 25th national title.
From Luuk de Jong and de Stars and Stripes to the Peter Bosz effect: the six pillars of the successful season.
De Jong in the form of his life
This season you couldn’t ignore Luuk de Jong. The strong striker was captain, top scorer and assist king in one. Almost unnoticed, he worked himself into the top ten of the all-time ranking of Premier League top scorers.
De Jong was better than ever. We knew that he can score, he has already scored 27 goals this Premier League season. But at the age of 33, the striker added a mountain of assists. And there were some beauties among them.
De Jong: assist king of this Premier League season
In total, De Jong was the signaler of a teammate’s goal no fewer than fourteen times, the most of all Premier League players. Joey Veerman, who takes the corner kicks for PSV, follows with thirteen assists.
Complementary midfield
Half of the next pillar has been mentioned with Veerman. The Volendam midfielder formed an adamant block in midfield with Jerdy Schouten this season.
Veerman scattered passes and dangerous corners. A telling statistic: Veerman created 114 chances this Premier League season, which puts him miles ahead of the next on the list (PEC Zwolle player Younes Namli, 69).
In addition to him, defensive security was provided by Schouten, who turned out to be a chameleon. He came over as a midfielder from Italian Bologna, but turned out to be just as good as a centre-back. In almost all major matches in the first half of the season, trainer Peter Bosz called on Schouten at the back, who played there without any problems.
American company
PSV had a strikingly American character this season. This is partly thanks to Earnest Stewart, the technical director with an American passport. He brought in three international players from the United States with Sergiño Dest, Ricardo Pepi and Malik Tillman.
Of them, Dest, hired from Barcelona, made the most impression. The multifunctional wing defender, who recently suffered a serious injury, often acted as an extra attacker when in possession of the ball. His drive forward and stunning technique gave PSV an extra weapon.
Bayern Munich mercenary Tillman also did well, but needed some time to distinguish himself. Pepi mainly has to make do with substitutes in the shadow of De Jong, but has been the star on several occasions this season. Consider, for example, his headed goal against Sevilla, which took PSV to the knockout stages of the Champions League.
Benítez, the best PSV goalie since Gomes
In his first year, goalkeeper Walter Benítez was often criticized, but this season the skepticism disappeared. The Argentinian was there when he needed to and kept a clean sheet eighteen times in the Premier League alone. By far the most of all goalkeepers in the competition.
Benítez is widely praised as the best PSV goalkeeper since Heurelho Gomes. That is not very strange. Who was the last leader of the Eindhoven team, eighteen clean sheets recorded in a premier league season? That’s right, the illustrious Brazilian.
Now the 31-year-old Benítez becomes national champion for the first time in his career, he played with his clean sheets in the history books and made his debut for the Argentina national team in March.
Wing flashes
Before the Premier League season, some eyebrows were raised: didn’t PSV have too many wingers, including Johan Bakayoko, Noa Lang, Hirving Lozano and Yorbe Vertessen? In retrospect, the answer is: no. The people of Eindhoven needed everyone.
Lang was unable to show everything due to injuries and Lozano did not make a great impression apart from a hat trick against Ajax. It was mainly Bakayoko who stole the show. The Belgian scored some phenomenal goals in the Premier League, but was also good for five assists at European level. He seems ready for the top.
In addition, the aforementioned Dest also profiled himself as an extra winger. Handy for trainer Bosz, who lost Vertessen to the German Union Berlin during the winter break.
Bosz effect
A year ago it did not look like Peter Bosz would become champion with PSV this season. After all, the Eindhoven team had just won the cup under the leadership of Ruud van Nistelrooij, who seemed to be in the right place. But then a bomb suddenly exploded and Van Nistelrooij resigned from his duties after round 33.
From the very beginning, Bosz was the top candidate for Van Nistelrooy’s successor and the love turned out to be mutual. The coach, who has been clubless since his dismissal from Olympique Lyonnais in October 2022, attended the entire preparation and was able to patiently refine his team.
Successfully. PSV’s season couldn’t have gone much better. Regardless of the results, the game was often of a high level. The audience in the Philips Stadium was spoiled with fast counters, beautiful attacks and a flood of goals. And that was largely thanks to Bosz, who became national champion for the first time in his coaching career.
