Point Spreads - NCAA, Final Four, College Basketball, NBA, MLB, World Series, NFL, College Football, BCS & Super Bowl Point Spreads

PSV are one of the three big football 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 and is a regular competitor in the current European Champions' League. They are often nicknamed Boeren (Dutch for 'peasants') in reference to their provincial city origins.

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 defeat of the French in the Napoleonic wars. 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. Plans to further expand the ground to 40,000 seats have been put on hold. 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.

Bodog.com has PSV Eindhoven at 60 to 1 to win the UEFA Champions League

It was built at the same time as the inauguration of the club, although its current capacity was only achieved by various modernization programs throughout its history. The average attendance for the season 2005/06 was 33,165 spectators.

PSV garnered many honours in the football arena and has been credited as the club where many successful players such as Ruud Gullit, Ronald Koeman, Mateja Kežman, Romário, Ronaldo, Luc Nilis, Philip Cocu, Erik Gerets, Jaap Stam, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Arjen Robben 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.

In 1988, coached by Guus Hiddink and with a team featuring numerous excellent players such as Ronald Koeman, Eric Gerets, Søren Lerby and Wim Kieft, PSV won the European Cup for the first time and so far only time in its history, beating Benfica on penalties after a goalless final.

Curiously, PSV took the trophy despite not winning any of its final five fixtures in the competition: it eliminated both Bordeaux and Real Madrid on away goals, with all four matches ending in draws. Following the European Cup win, PSV faced off with Libertadores winners, Club Nacional de Football of Montevideo. After a 2-2 draw, Nacional went on to defeat PSV Eindhoven in penalties to win their 3rd World Club title. Guus Hiddink still calls that game one of the hardest defeats of his entire career.

Despite being able to scout South America and most of Europe for budding talents such as the above mentioned players, many of them have indirectly made PSV a springboard for professional development such as Ronaldo who spent only two seasons at the club as well as Mateja Kežman and Arjen Robben, and most recently, Park Ji-Sung and Lee Young-Pyo who were restless at the opportunity to move to more illustrious clubs after a mere two seasons.

The recent transfer of South Korea player Park to English club Manchester United was even quoted by PSV spokesman Pedro Salazar-Hewitt as having admitted that ”we'd love to keep him but the club has already asked for the player” which clearly indicates a total lack of control over the future of their own players.

Regardless, after the departures of influential players such as Mark van Bommel, Johann Vogel, Park Ji-Sung, Lee Young-Pyo and Wilfred Bouma after the 2004/2005 season, PSV has moved to secure the services of players like Mika Väyrynen, Osmar Ferreyra and Belgium midfielder Timmy Simons. With the addition of young players to bolster the squad such as Ismaïl Aissati and Ibrahim Afellay, PSV reached the knockout stage of the Champions League 2005/2006 for the second time in 2 seasons, having achieved the semi-final stage in the Champions League the season before.

They have also acquired veteran talent such as Patrick Kluivert. Widely regarded as one of the world's foremost forwards, Patrick Kluivert possesses an excellent first touch, a predatory instinct and is equally lethal on the ground or in the air.

He wrote himself into AFC Ajax’s folklore during his debut season with his hometown club, scoring the only goal of the UEFA Champions League final against AC Milan on 24 May 1995. Europe's biggest sides chased his signature yet Kluivert resisted and spent another term in Amsterdam before deciding on a move to the San Siro.

His stay at Milan was not a happy one and Kluivert departed for FC Barcelona after a solitary campaign. The attacking nature of Spanish football suited his game and he won a championship in his first term and remained a Camp Nou favorite until his free transfer to Newcastle United FC in 2004. After one season and 13 goals he departed for Valencia CF but injury restricted him to 202 minutes in 2005/06 and he returned to the Netherlands with PSV Eindhoven.

UEFA Club competition honors

European Champions Clubs’ Cup 1987/88

---