This season, Football-Oranje is getting involved in Dutch fantasy football! Fox Sports’ ‘Profcoach‘ is the platform used for everyone’s Eredivisie dream-teams that win points throughout the season. It’s not too late to sign up! Here are Michael Statham’s tips for what team to pick and how to join Football-Oranje.com’s exclusive league – can you beat the Dutch football know-it-alls?

  • By Michael Statham
  • Follow Michael on Twitter @EredivisieMike [feel free to ask me any questions!]

As a quick guide, the rules are as follows:

  • It’s free to play. Just make an account through Fox Sports NL. The set up is in Dutch but is easy to navigate;
  • You must pick a player from each Eredivisie team; (so no individual player prices!)
  • You must pick two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders, five strikers and a ‘gold’ player who can be of any position;
  • The team played each week must consist of eleven players in a suitable formation (4-3-3 or 4-4-2 etc);
  • There is a trial period until the end of the transfer market to make unlimited changes to your squad.

Here is my team (click to expand or scroll down to read more):

Before I discuss my team, we have a Football-Oranje league! Can you beat the people who think they know it all?

Click here to join, or enter our league code manually: 709505

Goalkeepers

I went with Willem II’s Timon Wellenreuther and Roda JC’s Hidde Jurjus. Firstly, Willem II gained an impressive ten clean sheets last season, thanks to Kostas Lamprou and the defence in front of him. I expect a similarly defensive style from them this time round too, and hopefully I can rely on both keepers here getting regular games for their clubs throughout the year. I am the type who loves to leave his team mostly the same through the season if possible and these ‘keepers are decent bets to retain their places.

Defenders

Vitesse’s new loanee Fankaty Dabo looks set to be a reliable figure at right-back, and on social media you could see how well he is getting on with right-winger Milot Rashica already. Strong spirit in the Arnhem camp will help keep their starting XI pretty consistent. Tim Matavz and Luc Castaignos are two strikers eager to make an impression back in the Netherlands but you want players who are almost guaranteed starters and face little competition for their spot. That’s why I also picked Utrecht’s Giovanni Troupée and PEC Zwolle’s Bram van Polen: two defenders who will play a lot of games this season in two fairly solid teams. Hence why I avoided the likes of Heerenveen and ADO for defenders because of their defensive woes last year.

Craig Goodwin was selected because he actually earns most of his games for Sparta on the left-wing (and not at full-back) whilst Jurgen Mattheij scored three times last season for Excelsior, is a starter at centre-back and is also a half-decent defender when not scoring into his own net.

Midfielders

From midfield, you want goals. Luckily the Eredivisie is full of them and the likes of Marco van Ginkel and Hakim Ziyech are reliable sources.

Oussama Assaidi was an interesting option for me from Twente, NAC Breda’s Manu Garcia will surprise many this season (on loan from Manchester City) and Lex Immers used to bag goals for fun for ADO and Feyenoord in the past – he has been selected by an outstanding 48% of all Profcoach players!

For my gold player, I chose Mimoun Mahi. Excellent for Groningen last season and should be their top goal scorer again this time around too if he stays at the club.

Strikers

In the Eredivisie, even the strikers who seem fairly average can enjoy a season-long purple patch. For example, take Heerenveen’s Reza. Luckily, you know that reliable performers Nicolai Jorgensen and Samuel Armenteros can also bring the goods.

I went with AZ’s Wout Weghorst and VVV’s Ralf Seuntjens to also have productive seasons in front of goal, seeing as I back VVV to stay up and AZ will have some good performers in attack to provide Weghorst with ammunition – Calvin Stengs and Alireza Jahanbakhsh, for instance.

What are your teams? Share them with me! Tweet me @EredivisieMike! Don’t forget to join our league! Plenty of players will join us in the coming weeks…

If you like this article and want more content on Profcoach, please let us know and I shall provide!




Michael Statham (802 Posts)

Writer/interviewer/YouTuber for Football-Oranje. Massive Dutch football fan from the UK. Follow me @EredivisieMike & subscribe to Football-Oranje on YouTube.