A New Era in Dutch Football - Vitesse

April



Its a hell of a month as we start off against Go Ahead Eagles thanks to Unuvar, Alena and 2 goals from Buitink. We then travel to Spain in the Europa League and we put in another massive performance as Bella-Kotchap gets us off to a great start before Sidibe doubles the lead just after half time. Urzi then gets an excellent brace to round of a brilliant match that the club can be proud of. The match against Heerenveen was much closer than it looked as we rode our luck when they scored an own goal in the 3rd minute before waiting until the 90th minute when Urzi knocked in a lose ball.

The return leg we struggle but Urzi puts us ahead before Bilbao rescue the draw right before the final whistle but the first leg is enough to see us into the Semi Finals. Next is our first cup final and sadly Dost scores the winner in the 90th minute which was heart breaking for the fans but it will just drive us on more for next year. We bounce back though against Zwolle thanks to goals from Unuvar, van Ginkel and 2 goals from Buitink. This win means that we will have Champions League football again next year since we have been confirmed as League Champions ahead of Ajax. We round the month off with a loss to RB Leipzig in the Semi Final of the Europa League. Luckily we will play the 2nd leg in front of our own fans.

League



May

May



We start the month off losing against Willem II which isn't the best but we rested nearly all our players for the 2nd leg of the Europa League Semi final. What was annoying was we lost with a penalty being scored with the final kick of the ball. Against Leipzig we managed to snatch a 1-0 victory thanks to Buitink which meant we took the tie to penalties which we won 6-5 meaning we make the final where we will face Manchester United. In the final game of the season we rotate the squad to give some other players a run out and Unuvar gets the only goal of the game just before half time.

We then play two friendlies to make sure everybody is kept match fit which we win both games comfortably to give us confidence going into the Europa League Final.

In the final we actually perform really well but a single goal from Alex Telles in the 41st minute is enough to separate the two teams come the time of the final whistle. Its annoying to lose but considering the strength of the Man Utd squad I'm happy that we kept it to only 1-0 and it gave the players the experience of playing in a European Final.

League



There certainly seems to be a power shift with Ajax dropping points on the final day of the season to allow Feyenoord to grab 2nd spot over them meaning Ajaz miss out on Champions League football.

Season Review



End of Season Awards



Good to see Marco van Ginkel smashing player of the season along with winning signing of the season. It shows how important he's been in the middle of the park this season.

Budget



Not the biggest budget and we will have to look at selling players to then bring in the quality we need to keep competing at the top of the league.

Transfers Out



We have so far shipped a few players out but the big one is Sergio Gomez leaving to go to RB Leipzig for £36 million. He took the hump when we rejected an offer from Manchester United and submitted a transfer request so we were happy to let him go. The funds will go towards replacing him in the centre of the park. At least we received double what we paid for him 12 months ago so got to be happy with that. The other big transfer out was Claudio Ramos who we signed on a free for £7.25 million. Julian Alvarez also left for £10 million as he wasn't going to be getting much football and falling down the pecking order.

Transfers In



To replace Sergion Gomes we bring in the next big thing in central midfield from Dutch football form Ajax in Ryan Gravenberch. £35 million might be a lot of money but he can go on to be a real force for us and it also weakens Ajax further in the process as well which is even better. We also sign Kayahan Cakirefe from Austria Wien who was brought to the clubs attention by the scouts at the start of last season but we couldn't strike a deal and he appeared on the transfer list towards the end of last season so we snapped him up.

He looks like he is going to be a right force for years to come.



We are sill in the market for a number of players if the right ones appear as we have lost out to a number of Premier League clubs for a number of players.

Preseason



So our preseaso couldn't of gone much better as we go unbeaten across all of it with Brighton causing us the only issue. The big match of preseason though was the Dutch curtain raiser the Johan Cruiff Schaal which we lost last season to Ajax. We perform a lot better this season against Feyenoord as we're 2-0 up in only 14 minutes thanks to Urzi and Buitink. Buitink then got his second in the 26th minute meaning the game was all but over. Alena then added the 4th in the 62nd minute to see us win the opening cup.

August



Expectations



Everything seems to be pretty standard after last season and we should be able to attack on all fronts if everything goes to plan.