Hoofdklasse Round 4: Champions Rotterdam Hunt a First Point as Den Bosch’s Women Roll Into Amsterdam
Three rounds into the Dutch season, the champions have played three and lost three.
Rotterdam, who lifted the men’s title last season, sit on zero points with seven scored and eleven conceded. On Sunday they host promoted SCHC at Hazelaarweg, and a fourth straight defeat turns a bad start into a proper crisis. Their losses haven’t been thrashings, either: 3-1 to Bloemendaal, then a pair of 4-3s against Amsterdam and Den Bosch. Close every week. Pointless every week. That has to sting.
The men’s card: top v bottom, and a corner duel
Amsterdam are the league’s only perfect side. Three wins from three, including that 4-3 at Rotterdam, and on Sunday they visit Schaerweijde, who have shipped 15 goals already and were hammered 9-1 by Bloemendaal at ‘t Kopje last week. For our money, this is the weekend’s most likely rout.
Bloemendaal themselves, seven points and 14 goals in three games, travel to HDM. That one’s a shootout waiting to happen: HDM’s Fabian Verzuu leads the national scoring chart with six goals, every one of them from open play.
Pinoké v Den Bosch in the Amsterdamse Bos pairs a winless home side, two draws and a defeat so far, with an unbeaten Den Bosch team built on a very modern weapon. Timo Boers has five goals already. All five are penalty corners.
The other two games are studies in contrast. Tilburg, promoted and still waiting for their first goal of the season after three blanks, host a Kampong side that hasn’t conceded one yet: 0-0 with Den Bosch, 3-0 over SCHC, and a game in hand on everyone. Something’s got to give there too. And in Eindhoven, Oranje-Rood v Klein Zwitserland matches two unbeaten teams, though KZ keep splitting the points, with two draws from three.
Sunday’s men’s fixtures: Schaerweijde v Amsterdam, HDM v Bloemendaal, Pinoké v Den Bosch, Rotterdam v SCHC, Oranje-Rood v Klein Zwitserland, Tilburg v Kampong.
The women: Den Bosch’s first real test
The women’s competition is a round further along after a midweek programme, and Sunday’s headline act is a big one: Amsterdam v Den Bosch.
Den Bosch have been ruthless. Four wins from four, 17 goals scored, one conceded, and Frédérique Matla already has nine goals to her name, the latest milestone in a career that collects them. But Amsterdam are unbeaten too, third on ten points, and the Wagener crowd has seen this fixture produce classics. SCHC sit level with Den Bosch on 12 points, powered by Yibbi Jansen’s eight goals, six corners and two strokes, while Kampong have matched Den Bosch’s 17 goals but lost a nine-goal classic 5-4 to SCHC in a match that produced two hat-tricks. At the bottom, HGC and Victoria are still waiting for their first point.
Amsterdam v Den Bosch is, for our money, the match of the Dutch weekend. Rotterdam v SCHC is the one with the most pressure riding on it. By Sunday night, we’ll know a lot more about both ends of both tables.
