Dutch Debate: AZ’s Champions League Failure Confirms The New Status Of Dutch Football

Both fans and players of Dutch titleholders AZ were satisfied when the Alkmaar outfit were drawn alongside Arsenal, Olympiacos and Standard Liege in Group H of the Champions League. The English giants were the undisputed favourites to finish first in the group, but many were of the opinion that AZ certainly had a chance of finishing as runners-up, thus qualifying for the knock-out phase.

However, hardly three months later, all the initial optimism has vanished like a thief in the night. AZ started their Champions League campaign with a narrow away loss against Olympiacos and things have gone from bad to worse since then. They recorded home draws against Standard Liege and Arsenal before being heavily beaten in London three weeks ago. As a result, they desperately needed a win at home against Olympiacos on Tuesday, but the Greek side were hardly troubled and picked up a scoreless draw to dismiss AZ’s Champions League ambitions.

With one more game remaining, all AZ can achieve is qualification for the Europa League. The Eredivisie champions need an away win against Standard Liege to do so, and, though one should never say never, this appears to be very unlikely to happen.

AZ’s failure to make an impact at Champions League level is not a case on its own though. The Dutch league has downgraded from one of Europe’s best in the mid-90s to nothing more than a make-weight nowadays. Aside from AZ this year, Eredivisie powerhouses PSV, Ajax and Twente have also struggled to compete with the best at Champions League level in the past couple of seasons.

In 2006-07, titleholders PSV were the last Dutch team to survive the group stage of the Champions League. PSV put in a good performance and finished second in their group, behind Liverpool, but ahead of Bordeaux and Galatasaray. The Eindhoven giants went on to impress in the final 16, where they eliminated Arsenal. Nevertheless, again Liverpool proved to be too good for the Eindhoven side in the quarter-finals. Ajax had failed to beat Copenhagen in the preliminaries and didn’t even make it into the group stage.

The year after, PSV were again the only Dutch team in the group phase of the Champions League. Amsterdam giants Ajax were unable to beat Slavia Prague in the preliminaries and had to settle for the UEFA Cup. PSV managed to collect seven points in their six group games and finished ahead of CSKA Moscow, but Fenerbahce and Inter proved to be too strong.

PSV and Twente were to be the two Dutch representatives in the Champions League in 2008-09. However, Twente were eliminated by Arsenal in the preliminaries, leaving PSV as the only Eredivisie side in the Champions League. The Eindhoven team were drawn in a tough group with Liverpool, Atletico Madrid and Olympique de Marseille. PSV recorded only one win, against Marseille, and lost the remaining five games to finish rock bottom in their group.

The fact that PSV are the only team to have made it into the knock-out phase in the past four seasons, and they did only once, pretty much sums up the situation of the Dutch league at the moment. The Eredivisie giants are not up for the challenge at Champions League level - they have lost touch with their counterparts from Europe’s biggest leagues.

England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are way ahead of the Dutch when it comes to club football, while Portugal, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine are about to move away, too.

However, the people of the Netherlands have no reason to be ashamed about their new position in European club football. The main factor for a club to be successful in football nowadays is money. Dutch sides don’t have the financial resources that outfits from bigger nations have. Those clubs make more money on sponsor deals, stadium income and TV revenues. With their extra income, they can attract better players and retain their own star men.

The downfall of Dutch football is therefore a logical result. The Dutch haven’t stopped producing amazing talent to help them to European success, but they have stopped being able to hold onto their players long enough.

A club like Ajax have lost players such as Maxwell, Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Barcelona), Cristian Chivu, Wesley Sneijder (Inter), Thomas Vermaelen (Arsenal), Zdenek Grygera (Juventus), Hedwiges Maduro (Valencia), Nigel de Jong (Manchester City) Rafael van der Vaart (Real Madrid), Ryan Babel (Liverpool) and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (Milan) in the past couple of seasons. There’s little doubt about it that the Amsterdam side would be firm contenders in the Champions League if they managed to keep all of them at the Amsterdam ArenA.

However, the prospect of making a big money move at a young age has been too tempting for all of the aforementioned stars, and this tendency isn’t likely too change in the near future. The club game will therefore have to settle for a mid-table position in European football. Sure, an Eredivisie side will make it to the knock-out phase of the Champions League every now and then, but the Dutch league has become more of a feeder for the bigger leagues over recent seasons.

What are your thoughts about this topic? Will Dutch clubs ever return to the top of European football? Goal.com wants to know what you think!