Wednesday night saw Tweede Divisie side Quick Boys beat the Eredivisie’s Almere City 3-0 at home in the KNVB Cup’s First Round.
The club from Katwijk aan Zee took the lead just nine minutes in with Ravelino Junte before Milan Zonneveld converted from the spot just before the interval. City’s Joey Jacobs found himself sent off for conceding that penalty, and things quickly went from bad to worse for the ten-men as the second half got started with Nick Broekhuizen finding the net in the 50th minute.
Away manager Hedwiges Maduro cut a disappointed figure in front of the ESPN cameras, when the inquest around the performance began. When asked about how the cup defeat hit, Maduro opened quickly:
“Very hard. Especially the way it happened. It’s just scandalous on our part. The commitment, the experience, not winning duels, especially the first half. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I blame myself for that, because I am responsible for it of course.”
This cup defeat follows the club’s first victory of the season in the Eredivisie. Maduro continued:
“You see in one week how good we can be, but also how bad we can be if we don’t execute that. We prepared for Quick Boys for three days, analyzed matches, showed the entourage. We showed that they are actually good against professional clubs. Only it’s about what you show on the field and that wasn’t good enough.”
While Almere were somewhat stunned, the evening’s hosts left yet another mark on the competition. Quick Boys defeated NAC Breda and De Graafschap last season, and after that, the coastal side took AZ Alkmaar to a penalty shootout to advance from the Round of 16. The Blue White Jesters’ boss Thomas Duivenvoorden presented contrasting thoughts to his opposite number Maduro:
“We were simply the boss of Almere City from the first to the last minute. The fact that the result is not even flattering makes me very proud.”
Left-back Nigel Ogidi Nwankwo added:
“This is already the second Eredivisionist that we have made it difficult for. It wasn’t really easy, but we thought the red card would make it a bit easier for us. We made it harder by getting a red card ourselves. So, sometimes it was a bit of a hold-up, but we made it. In the next round? It doesn’t matter, another great team, a top club.”
