Bloemendaal vulnerable at the back despite seven clean sheets
Seven days to go until the start of the Staatsloterij Hoofdklasse. Every day, we’re counting down to the start of the league with an interesting fact. Today, we’re focusing on the Bloemendaal lads and goalkeeper Maurits Visser.
Last season, Bloemendaal kept a clean sheet in seven league matches. No other team managed to do so more often. Yet that defensive performance proved insufficient to secure a place in the play-offs. Bloemendaal finished sixth.
The seven clean sheets therefore tell only part of the story. In the remaining fifteen matches, Bloemendaal conceded 41 goals, an average of 2.7 per match. In ten of the 22 league matches, the team conceded at least three goals. Against Oranje-Rood, Kampong and Rotterdam, that figure even rose to four.
With a total of 41 goals conceded, Bloemendaal still had the third-least-beaten defence in the Hoofdklasse. Only Oranje-Rood (29) and Rotterdam (38) conceded fewer goals. The main problem lay in the wide variations: on seven occasions they kept a clean sheet, but on other days they were left wide open.
Even by Bloemendaal’s standards, 41 goals conceded was a lot. It was the first time since the 2013–2014 season that the team had conceded more than forty goals in the regular league campaign. In the five previous full seasons, the tally had consistently remained between 29 and 34. The seven clean sheets were therefore impressive, but offered no guarantee of defensive solidity – and ultimately no guarantee of a place in the play-offs either.
