Robin van Persie had Feyenoord play very defensively when taking a lead in the second half against SC Heerenveen (2-2) on Sunday afternoon. Pieter Zwart states in a video of Football International that this is remarkable, because he expressed his frustrations earlier in the season when Ajax did the same in De Klassieker (2-0).
Feyenoord gave up a 1-2 lead in the final phase when they visited SC Heerenveen on Sunday afternoon, meaning that the Rotterdam team had only won three times in the last thirteen matches. While Van Persie’s team came out well a number of times in the first half, Feyenoord only went backwards in the second half to defend their lead.
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“Feyenoord left the ball to Heerenveen and did what many teams do when they are having a hard time,” says Zwart. “Further back, make it compact in your own half, low block. Van Persie has presented himself as an idealist, but now that things are going less well, it turns out that he is just as much a pragmatist. It was only a few weeks ago that Ajax took an early lead in a similar scenario and defended low and Van Persie stood fulminating in front of the camera to explain that only one team wanted to play football and therefore it was not a top match.”
Black saw that Van Persie had now completely changed his mind about this type of game. “Now he was explaining that it was not at all strange that Feyenoord would end up in a low defense when taking a lead against Heerenveen. It is clear that the poor results mean that Van Persie is moving some posts,” he concludes.
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