‘Supporters don’t belong on field’

PSV coach Ruud van Nistelrooij is disappointed that his team has been eliminated in the Europa League, but is proud of his team after the 2-0 victory. “Of course you look at two nights, then the final score by that 3-0 defeat in Spain is 3-2. But you didn’t lose tonight, a good performance with this young group. You couldn’t have done more. Three goals against in the away game are just too many.”

Only after 60 minutes did PSV get a bit of a grip on the match, where it had been expected that the Eindhoven players would attack from the start. Van Nistelrooij: “Of course that was the intention, but we didn’t get that done. They have quality, turning away or doing a one-two to get out from under the pressure. That created doubt.”

After an hour, the picture of the game changed, thanks in part to two offensive substitutions by Van Nistelrooij. “From then on I thought we started to create chances. After the 1-0 a quarter of an hour before time it became fun, unfortunately the second one didn’t fall until the 94th minute. Then you had Til’s shot that was blocked in the last second.”

“But the players were also disappointed because the referee promised two more minutes, but he blew the whistle right away. The players wanted another final offensive.”

That extra time was expected by the players because play was stopped for a while when a supporter entered the pitch and attacked Sevilla goalkeeper Marko Dmitrovic. Van Nistelrooij spoke outrage at the supporter’s action. “We disapprove of that, supporters do not belong on the field and attacking players is unthinkable,” he said.

General director of PSV, Marcel Brands, is furious: “If it is up to me, it will be a lifelong stadium ban. He also dupe PSV and all other supporters. I think this moment is worse than the elimination. It doesn’t belong to PSV at all.”