2011–12 Eredivisie

This article is about the men's competition. For the women's competition, see 2011–12 Eredivisie (women).

The 2011–12 Eredivisie is the 56th season of Eredivisie since its establishment in 1955. It began in August 2011 with the first matches of the season ^[2] and ended in June with the last matches of the European competition and relegation playoffs. AFC Ajax had the highest average attendance, around 49,000.

Eredivisie

Season	2011–12
Dates	5 August 2011 – 6 May 2012
Champions	Ajax (31st title)
Relegated	Excelsior De Graafschap
Champions League	Ajax Feyenoord
Europa League	PSV AZ Heerenveen Vitesse Arnhem Twente
Matches played	306
Top goalscorer	Bas Dost (32 goals)
Biggest home win	Heracles Almelo 7–0 VVV-Venlo Roda JC 7–0 Excelsior
Biggest away win	ADO Den Haag 0–6 AZ
Highest scoring	Utrecht 6–4 Ajax
Longest winning run	14 games Ajax
Longest unbeaten run	14 games Ajax
Longest winless run	10 games Excelsior
Longest losing run	7 games VVV-Venlo
Total attendance	5,171,797[1]
Average attendance	19,516[1]
← 2010–11 2012–13 →

Teams

A total of 18 teams are taking part in the league, the best 15 teams from the 2010–11 season, two promotion/relegation playoff winners and the 2010–11 Eerste Divisie champions.

ADO

Ajax

AZ

Rotterdam

De Graafschap

Groningen

Heerenveen

Heracles

NAC

NEC

PSV

RKC

Roda JC

Twente

Utrecht

Vitesse

VVV

Rotterdam teams

Excelsior
Feyenoord

Location of teams in Eredivisie 2011–12

Feyenoord

Excelsior

Rotterdam Eredivisie football clubs

Club	Location	Venue	Capacity
ADO Den Haag	The Hague	Kyocera Stadion	15,000
AFC Ajax	Amsterdam	Amsterdam ArenA	52,342
AZ	Alkmaar	AFAS Stadion	17,000
Excelsior	Rotterdam	Stadion Woudestein	3,531
Feyenoord	Rotterdam	De Kuip	51,577
De Graafschap	Doetinchem	De Vijverberg	12,600
FC Groningen	Groningen	Euroborg	22,580
SC Heerenveen	Heerenveen	Abe Lenstra Stadion	26,800
Heracles Almelo	Almelo	Polman Stadion	8,500
NAC Breda	Breda	Rat Verlegh Stadion	19,000
NEC	Nijmegen	Stadion de Goffert	12,470
PSV	Eindhoven	Philips Stadion	35,000
RKC Waalwijk	Waalwijk	Mandemakers Stadion	7,500
Roda JC	Kerkrade	Parkstad Limburg Stadion	19,979
FC Twente	Enschede	De Grolsch Veste	32,000
FC Utrecht	Utrecht	Stadion Galgenwaard	24,426
Vitesse Arnhem	Arnhem	GelreDome	25,000
VVV-Venlo	Venlo	De Koel	8,000

Managerial changes

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Position in table	Replaced by	Date of appointment
N.E.C.	Wiljan Vloet	Signed by Sparta Rotterdam	1 July 2011[3]	Pre-season	Alex Pastoor	1 July 2011[3]
SBV Excelsior	Alex Pastoor	Signed by NEC	1 July 2011[3]	Pre-season	John Lammers	1 July 2011[4]
FC Utrecht	Ton du Chatinier	Mutual consent	1 July 2011[5]	Pre-season	Erwin Koeman	1 July 2011[6]
De Graafschap	Darije Kalezić	End of contract	1 July 2011[7]	Pre-season	Andries Ulderink	1 July 2011[8]
VVV-Venlo	Wil Boessen	End of interim spell	1 July 2011[9]	Pre-season	Glen De Boeck	15 June 2011[10]
FC Twente	Michel Preud'homme	Signed by Al-Shabab	1 July 2011[11]	Pre-season	Co Adriaanse	1 July 2011[12]
SBV Vitesse	Albert Ferrer	End of contract	1 July 2011[13][14]	Pre-season	John van den Brom	1 July 2011[14]
ADO Den Haag	John van den Brom	Signed by Vitesse	1 July 2011[15]	Pre-season	Maurice Steijn	1 July 2011[15]
Feyenoord	Mario Been	Resigned	13 July 2011[16]	Pre-season	Ronald Koeman	21 July 2011[17]
FC Utrecht	Erwin Koeman	Resigned	18 October 2011[18]	10th	Jan Wouters	18 October 2011[19]
VVV-Venlo	Glen De Boeck	Resigned	6 December 2011[20]	17th	Wil Boessen Ben van Dael (joint caretakers)	8 December 2011[21]
VVV-Venlo	Wil Boessen Ben van Dael	End of caretaker spell	24 December 2011[22]	17th	Ton Lokhoff	24 December 2011[22]
FC Twente	Co Adriaanse	Dismissed	3 January 2012[23]	3rd	Steve McClaren	5 January 2012[24]
De Graafschap	Andries Ulderink	Dismissed	19 February 2012[25]	18th	Richard Roelofsen (caretaker)	20 February 2012[26]
PSV	Fred Rutten	Sacked	12 March 2012[27]	4th	Phillip Cocu (caretaker)	12 March 2012[28]

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Ajax (C)	34	23	7	4	93	36	+57	76	Qualification to Champions League group stage
2	Feyenoord	34	21	7	6	70	37	+33	70	Qualification to Champions League third qualifying round
3	PSV	34	21	6	7	87	47	+40	69	Qualification to Europa League play-off round[a]
4	AZ	34	19	8	7	64	35	+29	65
5	Heerenveen	34	18	10	6	79	59	+20	64	Qualification to Europa League third qualifying round[a]
6	Twente	34	17	9	8	82	46	+36	60	Qualification to European competition play-offs and Europa League first qualifying round[b]
7	Vitesse Arnhem (O)	34	15	8	11	48	43	+5	53	Qualification to European competition play-offs[a]
8	NEC	34	13	6	15	42	45	−3	45
9	RKC Waalwijk	34	13	6	15	40	49	−9	45
10	Roda JC	34	14	2	18	55	70	−15	44
11	Utrecht	34	11	10	13	55	58	−3	43
12	Heracles	34	11	7	16	52	62	−10	40
13	NAC Breda	34	10	8	16	45	54	−9	38
14	Groningen	34	10	7	17	41	61	−20	37
15	ADO Den Haag	34	8	8	18	38	67	−29	32
16	VVV-Venlo (O)	34	9	4	21	42	78	−36	31	Qualification to relegation play-offs
17	De Graafschap (R)	34	6	6	22	36	74	−38	24
18	Excelsior (R)	34	4	7	23	28	76	−48	19	Relegation to the Eerste Divisie

Source: Eredivisie (official site) (in Dutch)
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) number of goals scored.
(C) Champions; (O) Play-off winners; (R) Relegated
Notes:

1. PSV qualified for the play-off round of the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League after winning the 2011–12 KNVB Cup. As they finished third in the league, all Europa League berths and play-off places were moved down one spot from the original scheme.
2. Twente qualified for the first qualifying round of the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League based on the 2011–12 UEFA Respect Fair Play ranking, which awarded one extra qualifying spot to the Netherlands. This allowed qualification for Twente despite their loss in the European competition Playoffs.^[29][30]

Results

Home \ Away	ADO	AJX	AZ	EXC	FEY	GRA	GRO	HEE	HER	NAC	NEC	PSV	RKC	RJC	TWE	UTR	VIT	VVV
ADO Den Haag		0–2	0–6	1–1	1–2	3–5	3–0	0–0	2–0	3–0	1–0	0–3	0–1	3–3	1–1	2–2	0–0	2–0
Ajax	4–0		2–2	4–1	1–1	3–1	2–0	5–1	6–0	2–2	4–1	2–0	3–0	4–1	1–1	0–2	4–1	2–0
AZ	3–0	1–1		2–0	2–1	4–0	1–0	3–3	3–1	0–0	4–0	3–1	1–0	1–0	2–2	2–0	4–0	2–1
Excelsior	1–1	1–4	0–0		0–2	1–1	0–1	0–5	0–2	3–0	0–2	1–3	1–0	2–1	0–1	2–3	0–2	3–1
Feyenoord	0–3	4–2	1–0	3–0		4–0	1–0	2–2	4–1	3–1	0–1	2–0	1–1	3–0	3–2	1–1	3–1	4–0
De Graafschap	0–3	1–4	0–2	2–2	0–3		2–3	0–2	2–3	3–1	1–0	1–3	1–3	1–2	1–2	3–0	0–1	1–4
Groningen	4–2	1–0	0–3	2–0	6–0	1–1		1–3	2–1	1–1	3–3	3–0	0–3	0–1	1–1	1–0	1–3	2–1
Heerenveen	4–0	0–5	5–1	4–2	2–3	1–1	3–0		1–1	1–0	2–2	1–5	1–1	4–3	1–5	2–0	1–1	4–1
Heracles	0–2	2–3	0–1	3–0	1–1	2–0	2–1	2–4		2–1	1–2	1–1	1–1	2–1	1–1	3–1	0–1	7–0
NAC Breda	4–0	0–2	2–1	2–0	1–3	1–1	2–2	2–2	1–2		1–1	3–1	3–2	0–3	0–1	1–0	1–0	3–1
N.E.C.	2–0	0–3	1–1	2–0	0–2	2–0	4–0	2–4	2–1	1–2		0–2	1–1	1–2	3–1	3–1	0–1	2–0
PSV Eindhoven	5–0	2–2	3–2	6–1	3–2	4–1	6–1	5–1	4–1	1–0	2–1		1–0	7–1	2–6	1–0	3–1	2–0
RKC Waalwijk	1–0	0–1	1–2	1–0	1–2	1–0	1–1	0–1	2–2	2–1	2–0	2–1		5–2	0–4	0–2	1–0	4–0
Roda JC	4–1	0–4	2–0	7–0	0–0	0–2	2–1	1–2	3–1	4–3	1–0	1–3	0–2		2–1	1–3	3–1	3–1
Twente	5–2	1–2	2–0	2–2	0–2	4–0	4–1	3–4	2–3	2–2	2–0	2–2	5–0	2–0		1–0	0–0	4–1
Utrecht	1–1	6–4	3–0	3–2	2–2	2–2	3–1	1–4	2–2	1–3	0–0	1–1	3–0	3–1	2–6		2–2	4–2
Vitesse Arnhem	1–0	1–3	2–2	3–2	0–4	2–0	0–0	1–1	2–0	1–0	0–1	1–1	4–0	5–0	1–4	2–1		4–0
VVV-Venlo	2–1	2–2	1–3	0–0	2–1	1–2	2–0	0–3	3–1	2–1	0–2	3–3	4–1	2–0	4–2	0–0	1–3

Source: news.bbc.co.uk
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Play-offs

European competition

The teams placed sixth through ninth compete in a play-off tournament for one spot in the second qualifying round of the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League. Teams on the left played the first leg at home.

Semi-finals

The first legs were played on 10 May 2012, while the return legs were competed on 13 May 2012.^[31]

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
NEC	3–4	Vitesse Arnhem	3–2	0–2
RKC Waalwijk	2–1	Twente	1–1	1–0

Finals

The first leg was played on 17 May 2012, while the return leg was competed on 20 May 2012.^[32]

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
RKC Waalwijk	2–5	Vitesse Arnhem	1–3	1–2

Relegation

VVV-Venlo and De Graafschap joined the Eerste Divisie-teams for the playoffs, after finishing 16th and 17th in the Eredivisie. Teams on the left played the first leg at home.

Round 1

The first legs were played on 1 May 2012, while the return legs were competed on 5 May 2012.^[33]

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Go Ahead Eagles	1–3	Den Bosch	1–1	0–2
MVV	1–2	Cambuur	0–2	1–0

Round 2

The first legs were played on 10 May 2012, with the return legs were competed on 13 May 2012.^[34]

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Den Bosch	1–1	De Graafschap	0–0	1–1
Willem II	3–2	Sparta Rotterdam	2–1	1–1
Helmond Sport	3–0	Eindhoven	1–0	2–0
Cambuur	3–4	VVV-Venlo	0–0	3–4

Round 3

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Den Bosch	1–2	Willem II	0−0	1–2
Helmond Sport	3–4	VVV-Venlo	1−2	2–2

Top goalscorers

Source: Eredivisie (official site) (in Dutch), Soccerway

Pos.	Player	Club	Goals
1	Bas Dost	Heerenveen	32
2	Luuk de Jong	Twente	25
	Sanharib Malki	Roda	25
4	Dries Mertens	PSV	21
5	John Guidetti	Feyenoord	20
6	Ola Toivonen	PSV	18
7	Jozy Altidore	AZ Alkmaar	15
8	Tim Matavž	Groningen / PSV	14
9	Siem de Jong	Ajax	13
10	Glynor Plet	Heracles / Twente	12
	Wilfried Bony	Vitesse Arnhem	12

Updated to games played on 6 May 2012 (end of competition)