What do people look for in football? Some look for flair, others look for impeccable tactics, but everyone really wants goals. And plenty of them. Good goals, bad goals, ugly goals, Puskas contenders, bicycle kicks, long-range rockets, team goals, Panenkas, Olimpicos, trivelas, etc., etc., etc.
If you're looking for goals, we have just the fix for you.
Because no league this season is more entertaining than the Dutch Eredivisie. And not even just for goals.
Let us explain.
Goals galore
First and foremost, the Eredivisie is just a goal fest. This season, the Eredivisie has seen 177 goals in 44 games, making for an average of over 4 goals per game. Across the top 10 leagues, only the German Bundesliga comes even close at 3.94 goals per game, though they've only played 18 games this season in Germany.
The Eredivisie has been on a tear over the last two weeks, especially. In the last 20 games, only one game has had fewer than three goals (FC Twente-Telstar, 1-0).
Two games had 3 goals, 10 games had 4 goals, four games had 5 goals, one game had 6 goals, and two games had 7 goals. Talk about prolific.
It also makes for a bizarrely low number of clean sheets in the league: after 44 games, the tally stands at just 10, of which 5 came in the first round.
Eight total teams are scoring at least two goals per game on average, while everyone is also on at least one conceded goal per game.
What home advantage?
Besides goals, it's also the general competitiveness of the league that should attract you.
Last weekend, the Eredivisie saw something happen for the first time since 1999: not a single home team won, with five away teams winning and four getting away with a draw. In a weekend where not one game had fewer than four goals, no less.
It wasn't much better in Round 4 either, though, with only two home teams winning that time. And again, all games had 4 or more goals.
Goal getters
Behind every goal, there's also a player, of course.
The players in the Eredivisie needed no time whatsoever to get going in the new season, with 17 players already having scored 3 or more goals.
Five players are tied for the league lead with 4 goals, with only one being a striker (Artem Stepanov, FC Utrecht) and four of them 22 years old or younger. Go Ahead Eagles' Soren Tengstedt is the oldest at 26, with Gjivai Zechiel (22), Rafik El Arguioui (21), Ro-Zangelo Daal (22) and Stepanov (19) making for a very youthful strike force in the Netherlands.
Will the Eredivisie continue to deliver this weekend? Only time will tell, but you can follow every second of the Dutch league via Flashscore.
