PSV Experiment No Walk in the Park

On-loan Queens Park Rangers winger Park Ji-Sung and Chelsea departee Jeffrey Bruma starred for a PSV Eindhoven side that held AC Milan to a 1-1 draw in the first leg of their Champions League Qualifier in Holland last night.

It was Bruma’s long-range strike, which led to the hosts’ equaliser on the hour mark when Milan keeper Christian Abbiati spilled at the feet of striker Tim Matavz for the Slovenian to slot home and preserve some semblance of parity ahead of the return in Italy next Wednesday.

PSV must score next week if they are to progress to the competition proper at the expense of their vastly more experienced opponents, but if there is one thing this team has it is a youthful exuberance that normally manifests itself in a voracious appetite for goals.

At just 21, Bruma was the oldest of the four home defenders on show last night in a team which has an average age of just over 22. Moreover, if QPR’s Park, 32, and 29-year-old midfielder Stijn Schaars, who was rumoured to be close to a move to Fulham last summer, are taken out of the equation, the average drops to a frightening 20.4.

Nevertheless, they still managed to net 103 times last season en route to the runners-up spot behind Ajax in the Eredivisie title race and they have started in a similar vein this term, with three wins out of three and 11 goals scored in the league and a 5-0 scoreline over two legs in their Champions League play-off against Belgian outfit SV Zulte Waragem.

Even at a club famed for its ability to unearth talent of the highest order, such as Romario, Ronaldo and Ruud van Nistelrooy, there is a buzz around this emerging side, led by former PSV player Philip Cocu, and they played some scintillating football at times against the Rossoneri.

The lively Adam Maher hit the crossbar and was the most impressive of a highly creative midfield three also featuring Park, returning to the club he served with such distinction from 2002-2005, who might have scored in the first half and also been awarded a penalty only to be denied by defence and officialdom respectively.

Alongside Bruma in central defence was on-loan Manchester City prodigy, Karim Rekik, 18, who has warranted just one Premier League start for the Citizens but found himself wearing the number 3 shirt and facing superstar former team-mate Mario Balotelli last night at the Philips Stadion.

Experienced internationals Kevin Strootman and Dries Martens were lost to Serie A in the summer – specifically AS Roma and SSC Napoli – while Erik Pieters switched to Stoke City to leave the club reliant on their academy for the foreseeable future.

The strength in depth of the youth system, however, is beyond question, with the only players over 23 on the bench yesterday being Sweden international Ola Toivonen, linked with West Ham United as far back as 2008, and Polish goalkeeper Przemyslaw Tyton, 26, who saved from Giorgos Karagounis of Fulham after the sending-off of Arsenal’s Wojiech Szczesny in 2012 to become the first to thwart a spot-kick in a European Championship match having started on the bench.

Although there will inevitably be ups and downs along the way, early signs were that the experiment looked to be paying dividends last night as the young side, nine of whom are Dutch with 38 caps between them (precisely half of which belong to Schaars), played Milan off the park at times. Indeed, they were unlucky to go behind against the run of play following a defensive lapse by Memphis Depay that allowed Ignazio Abate to cross for Stephan El Shaarawy to head home after 15 minutes.

That blunder was not in keeping, though, with a mostly assured defensive display. At the heart of it was Bruma, who was once thought to be destined for greatness at Stamford Bridge, with John Terry taking him under his wing in West London and repeatedly touting him as a future Blues captain.

He showed his propensity to shoot on sight while on loan at Leicester City but was ultimately exposed for a lack of composure and general know-how in the Championship and was taken by former PSV player, Assistant Coach and Sporting Director Frank Arnesen to Hamburger SV at the start of the 2011-12 season. However, his confidence had been suitably shaken that the Hamburg project did not go to plan and the Blues sold him for £2.5m to PSV this summer.

Arnesen, who caused such controversy after being headhunted by Chelsea while with Tottenham Hotspur for a fee believed to be between £5m and £8m in 2005, has since left the German club with his reputation tarnished and is now left to watch on from the game’s sidelines as the next crop comes through the Eindhoven ranks under the tutelage of Academy Director Art Langeler.

Judging from yesterday’s exhilarating showing, he doesn’t know what he is missing.