Yesterday was the Quarter final of the Dutch cup.
I admit, it misses some of the glory of the FA cup,
but i did found something here which I though we had lost.

MVV Maastricht, a small first division side, reached the quarter final for the first time in 10 years.
I had followed them during their cup run,
Seeing them defeating the noble dillettant side of AFC in the old Olympic stadium of Amsterdam, built for the 1928 games of the IXth Olympiad.
But the club from the city of the infamous treaty, now had to go to Alkmaar, to the mighty AZ.

It was more than just a match between two clubs, it was a match between a club filled with money and a club which just managed to survive only a few years ago.
AZ, sponsored by the Evil Scheringa, a loan shark, but who buys his
indulgentia by sponsoring lots of positive things.
On the other hand, it can't be praised enough, for playing the most attractive football in the Netherlands.
So, our little team from Maastricht wouldn't stand a chance.

We had to face the mighty Louis van Gaal, return from Barcelona to his home soil
We had to face two footballers who had come from MVV and were now internationals, Perez, prince of the rotten kingdom of Denmark and Denny Landzaat.
We had to enter the arena where European giant like Villareal and the
Glasgow Rangers had to bow.

But the stadium, the old Alkmaarderhout, was the first thing that
filled our hearts with love.
Built in 1948, it was kept together by ropes and the skyboxes were
literally hanging in the sky, from the roof of the stands.
We could stand in the stadium
Next year it would be replaced by the "DSB management stadium", but for now the old theatre was still standing.

First we had to get our tickets though.
As we came from Amsterdam, we didn't have the obligatory Bus-Ticketcombi ticket from Maastricht.
Luckily here it appeared that Maastricht is nearer to the Italian
stronghold of Liège then to Amsterdam
A local Don Corleone provided us with a white envelope, after we hadgiven him a similar envelope.
Nothing was said, but we had our tickets.

A friendly pub was nearby.
The barmaid represented for us the very essense of North-Hollandic beauty
She was tall, blond, not that elegant, but her front would have made any man happy.
Although we were easily recognisable between the North-Hollanders we shared our Beer.

We went to stadium.
We stood between 600 Maastrichtenaren.
The motto of Alkmaar is "Alcmaria Victrix"
Remembering that the struggle for independance against the spaniards started at siege of the city.
MVV lost, inevitably, 4-0
But on the other had, the real football and its sphere that we love won, Alcamaria Victrix.
And the Maastrichtenaren kept singing for the whole 90 minutes and during the night.

"Come with us to Maastricht,
If you don't know where it is,
It is the city in the extreme south,
The pearl of the Limburgian lands,
The city on the roaring meuse,
Not often chanted about, alas,
Founded and built by the Romans
Come with us, to Maastricht."*

* it rhymes in dutch, obviously....

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