PSV Eindhoven
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 has won the European Cup in 1988.
As its name indicates, the club started out as a company-sponsored sports club for Philips employees. The club was founded for Philips employees on August 31st, 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 Philipsstadion 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, has been the venue for 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, Luc Nilis, Erik Gerets, Philip Cocu, Arthur Numan and Wim Jonk plied their trade and talents there.
Famous coaches such as the former South Korea football coach Guus Hiddink 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: 17x (1929, 1935, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1997, 2000, 2001 and 2003)
- Dutch cup: 7x (1950, 1974, 1976, 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1996)
- Dutch supercup: 7x (1992, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001 and 2003)
- UEFA Cup: 1x (1978)
- European Champions Cup: 1x (1988)
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 a lot of the other member clubs are also high-ranked in their respective national competitions.
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