Joey Veerman shot PSV to the final of the KNVB Cup in the Kuip at the expense of Go Ahead Eagles (1-2), but it would have been close if he couldn’t be there himself. The match winner escaped a yellow card in the final phase, which would have automatically resulted in a suspension.
,,I honestly didn’t know I was on edge, I just heard that,” Veerman confessed to ESPN. ,,Fortunately, I held back a bit at the last minute, so that the referee gave a free kick, but no yellow card”
Veerman received that previous yellow card in a cup match against AFC, when he still played for Heerenveen. This winter, the midfielder made the switch to PSV, where he immediately found his niche. ,,If you play with better players, you will play better yourself. I had 2.5 great years at Heerenveen, but I was really ready for the next step.”
He made the difference against Go Ahead in the 69th minute by sticking the ball behind goalkeeper Andries Noppert. In a free role he was a plague for the home team, which still had a 1-0 lead, but due to a red card for Joris Kramer played the entire second half with ten men. to find it”, said Veerman. “It was a nice game.”
Another final for Götze
Teammate Mario Götze has already won the DFB-Pokal four times (twice with Borussia Dortmund and twice with Bayern Munich), but hopes to win his first KNVB cup on Sunday 17 May. Then the winner of the semi-final between AZ and Ajax must be defeated on April 17.
,,It was tense at the end, we can blame ourselves for that. We should have scored more often”, Götze looked back on the game in Deventer. ,,We played well, but you have to express that in goals. Cup matches are always difficult, so it is certainly important to distance yourself when you get the chance.
“Now we had to stay sharp until the end. We could and should have made it easier for ourselves,” said the 29-year-old German, who tonight wore the captain’s armband (in the Ukrainian colors) at PSV. “Luckily, we scored the equalizer shortly before halftime and then they came too with ten men. Otherwise it would certainly have been more difficult. In the second half we were in control.”
Götze enjoyed that Veerman scored the winning goal. ,,He is a very good player. I like his way of playing and moving. He played great, so he deserved his goal. This was our third game in six days, so I’m happy we made it to the final without extra time.”
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