Kitchen Champion Division Three days after the painful draw at Jong AZ (3-3), ADO Den Haag suffered damage again when visiting Helmond Sport. Darije Kalezic’s team gave away another lead and lost 2-1 in the final phase on a penalty kick.
A visit to De Braak in Helmond is always a tough one for ADO Den Haag. The last time the team from The Hague returned to Helmond with three points in their pocket was in 2002. Led by Rinus Israël, ADO won 0-4.
Monday evening on the artificial turf was a lot less one-sided, although the team from The Hague started sharply again. After a few chances, it was Daryl van Mieghem who scored the opening goal with a roller on a pass from Sekou Sylla. His sixth goal of the season, making him ADO’s joint top scorer with Lee Bonis.
Van den Hurk scores and gets red
ADO easily kept the team from Brabant in check until half-time, but just like against Jong AZ, things went wrong after half-time. Helmond focused and found shortcomings in the defence from The Hague. In a standard situation, Jonas Scholz was completely free. Hugo Wentges saved Anthony van den Hurk’s first attempt, but had no answer to Tobias Pachonik’s rebound.
Then ADO pressed on. Ideho hit the crossbar and Alex Schalk missed a golden opportunity one-on-one with goalkeeper Hendriks. In the final phase, the team from The Hague also seemed to have a chance to win, but a foul by Diogo Tomas threw a spanner in the works. He pulled Van den Hurk down, after which the Helmond striker himself determined the final score from the penalty spot at 2-1. A little later, he also received a direct red card – quite unnecessarily.
ADO lost 15 points after taking the lead this season, the most of anyone. The club remains stuck in tenth place, while Helmond is closing in on the top with 30 points from 16 matches.
FC Volendam climbed to second place. Coach Rick Kruys’ team won 3-0 against Jong Ajax and thus reached 32 points. That is the same number as league leaders Excelsior, who will play against Jong FC Utrecht on Tuesday. Bilal Ould-Chikh and Robert Mühren scored in the first half for Volendam, who have been unbeaten for nine games in a row. In extra time, Mühren scored his second goal from a penalty kick.
FC Emmen defeated De Graafschap 3-0 and also passed the club from Doetinchem in the rankings. Emmen is third with 30 points. De Graafschap has 1 less. Jalen Hawkins opened the score for coach Alfons Arts’ team in the 5th minute and Franck Evina made it 2-0 four minutes later. Julius Kade scored just after half-time.
FC Dordrecht did itself a disservice by losing a 2-0 lead at home against bottom club TOP Oss: 2-2. Jong PSV against Jong AZ ended in 2-1 for the Eindhoven team.
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