PSV captured its 26th Eredivisie title on Sunday with four American players celebrating the achievement.
Peter Bosz’s side earned a 3-1 road win over Sparta Rotterdam, edging rivals Ajax to the league crown. Malik Tillman scored once in the result, while Sergino Dest played the full 90 minutes at right back.
Richie Ledezma was unused substitute while Ricardo Pepi remained out of the squad through injury.
Ivan Perisic opened the scoring after 27 minutes to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.
Sparta Rotterdam equalized nine minutes into the second half through Gjivai Zechiël’s finish.
However, PSV would regain its lead through Luuk De Jong’s 58th minute goal before Tillman iced the result six minutes before the final whistle. It marked Tillman’s 15th goal of the season across all competitions.
PSV would hang on for a 3-1 victory, helping them repeat as Eredivisie winners.
Tillman, Dest and Ledezma will now have a short break before potentially being called in for the U.S. men’s national team’s June camp. Pepi isn’t expected to be part of the squad due to his knee injury.
I say a 3-5-2 variation with Pulisic and Tillman as the dual 10’s with Pulisic being more of a strike partner for whoever is the main striker.
No Malik Tillman, no Eredivisie title for PSV, and that’s a fact……they were not doing so well when Tillman was out injured and seem to become totally rejuvenated when he returned. Six goals in his last 10 appearances……..well deserved kid👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
7-1 after his return, seven in a row.
8 matches that Tillman missed 17-15 GD, 3-2-3 (WLD) 2.1-1.9 average score. With Malik 22-3-1 88-24 GD 3.4- 0.9.
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Pepi going down two weeks later further didn’t help. Being in CL knockouts further stretched their depth. Getting Malik and Serge back and being down to one match a week greatly helped. Ajax had a key injury losing a starting CB and had one of their better wingers miss the last couple weeks. PSV got healthy and Ajax had some injuries.
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For comparison the 7 matches missed by Ajax CB Youri Bass 3-2-2 (9-13 GD) when he got injured Ajax had a 9 pt lead and Ajax was giving up .74 goals per game, they gave up 1.9 without him down the stretch. PSV went 7-0 and won the title.
Congrats to our PSV boys! Exciting to see Dest is back on the field, hopefully his game can return to where it was. Can’t help but scratch head at Tillman, he looks so so good with PSV, we have got to figure out how to get that form with the USMNT somehow.
When the USMNT can play together as well as PSV does then maybe you’ll see something.
Until then the USMNT will be a major work in progress and Tillman doesn’t seem to do well in that kind of environment.
Additionally, Ledezma did well enough in his place that he and Scally give us a lot of depth at that position.
Gary,
The USMNT told Richie, when he was the regular right back, that they were NOT looking at him as a right back.
Since then Sergino has come back and split time at right back with Ledezma.
I don’t know if the thinking has evolved at the USMNT but right now I would say Richie’s chances of getting called in by the USMNT as a right back are slim to none. But you never know. The USMNT have more right back candidates than they know what to do with., so maybe he gets called in as a utility guy