PSV ("Philips Sport Vereniging" or Philips Sports Union) is a professional football club from Eindhoven, the Netherlands. It is one of the three 'big' clubs of the Netherlands, the other two being Ajax Amsterdam and Feyenoord Rotterdam. The club won the European Cup, the predecessor of today's Champions League, in 1988.

History

As its name indicates, the club started out as a company-sponsored sports club for Philips employees on August 31, 1913 to celebrate the centennial independence of the Netherlands from France. PSV has evolved into a fully professional football club. Its home in Eindhoven is the Philips Stadion with a modest capacity of 36,500 spectators which is fully-seated. It was, however, the stadium where many European Cup final matches were played, and more recently was one of the Dutch venues for the Euro 2000 competition held jointly by the Netherlands and Belgium. It was built at the same time as the inauguration of the club, although its current capacity was only achieved by various modernisation programmes throughout its glorious history.

Throughout its history, PSV garnered many honours in the football arena and has been credited as the club where many phenomenally successful players such as Ronaldo, Romario, Ruud Gullit, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Jaap Stam, Arjen Robben, Mateja Kezman, Luc Nilis , Erik Gerets , Philip Cocu, Arthur Numan and Wim Jonk plied their trade and talents. Its success was built on the foundations laid down by other famous players like Willy van der Kuijlen , Jan van Beveren , Jan Poortvliet , the van de Kerkhof brothers who also played for the Dutch national team and Huub Stevens in the 1970s where the club won the UEFA Cup in 1978, defeating Bastia 3-0 in the final match.

Famous coaches such as Guus Hiddink, who between stints at PSV coached South Korea to a fourth-place finish in the 2002 World Cup, as well as the Dutch national team to a similar fourth place in the 1998 World Cup have managed the team over the years and have brought considerable successes to the club, culminating in the victory of the European Cup in 1988.

Trophies and titles

• Dutch league: 17 (1929, 1935, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1997, 2000, 2001 and 2003)
• Dutch cup: 7 (1950, 1974, 1976, 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1996)
• Dutch supercup: 7 (1992, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001 and 2003)
• UEFA Cup: 1 (1978)
• European Champions Cup: 1 (1988)

2004/2005 squad

Goalkeepers

• 1 Heurelho da Silva Gomes
• 21 Edwin Zoetebier
• 23 Nathan Coe

Defenders

• 2 André Ooijer
• 3 Lee Young-Pyo
• 4 Alex Rodrigo Dias da Costa
• 5 Wilfred Bouma
• 18 Eric Addo
• 19 Michael Lamey
• 20 Jurgen Colin
• 30 Kasper Bøgelund

Midfielders

• 6 Mark van Bommel
• 7 Park Ji-Sung
• 8 Philip Cocu
• 13 Remco van der Schaaf
• 14 Johann Vogel
• 16 Theo Lucius
• 17 Jefferson Farfán
• 22 Csaba Fehér
• 26 Jasar Takak
• 27 Arvid Smit
• 28 Jordi Hoogstrate
• 32 Ibrahim Afellay

Forwards

• 9 Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink
• 10 Leandro do Bomfim
• 11 DaMarcus Beasley
• 15 Johan Vonlanthen (on loan to Brescia)
• 25 John de Jong
• 29 Robert de Pinho
• 31 Otman Bakkal
• 35 Gerald Sibon

See also

• Dutch football league teams

Other sports

Currently, there are 17 clubs called PSV Eindhoven, all member of the Federatie van Philips Sport Verenigingen (Federation of Philips Sports Unions). The more than 5000 members (2003) participate in 20 different sports.

The recent successes of the swim club -- Pieter van den Hoogenband and Inge de Bruijn shared 8 medals (of which 5 gold) between them during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney -- has made it the second best known after the football club, but many of the other member clubs are also high-ranked in their respective national competitions.

Read further

• Official site of PSV Eindhoven in English
• Official site of PSV Eindhoven in Dutch
• Official site of PSV Eindhoven in Chinese