Are you from Swansea?
ADO Den Haag 4 - Roda JC 1
Sunday April 2 2017
Had to be asked really, ADO, a club with such close international links - Legia Warsaw, Juve, Club Brugge and Swansea City's going to get a fair bit of international friendship.
But my inquisitor didn't mind that I wasn't and we chatted about ADO's on-loan QPR midfielder El Khayati, who was man of the moment having just put ADO 2-0 up from the spot, a soft pen following a needless handball.
But folks here are friendly, belying the reputation of the fans. The family stand was absolutely ram-packed with kids and parents, and the sun shone. It was a balmy 16 degrees and a gorgeous day for a relegation 6-pointer.
ADO are clearly one of those teams that come to life when the sun shines in April, as it did today in the Hague.
In their Daffodil-coloured kit and with their Welsh connections, it's only appropriate.
I thought Roda would make a game of this and a classically tense, error-strewn relegation dog fight was in store. But the men from Kerkrade hadn't read that script and instead, capitulated.
ADO didn't hang about in seeing off the Limburgers. Sheraldo Becker put in his best performance of the season to torment Roda down the left, the winger finishing cleanly in the first minute, cutting in from the left after neat midfield passing and keeping the Roda keeper guessing as to whether he would cross or shoot, choosing the later and skidding the ball in off the water-soaked plastic surface.
Roda just never got going, aside from yellow cards which they collected with gusto. ADO put the game beyond them in the second half with good finishes from lanky Japanese international Mike Havenaar, following up a Dion Malone piledriver the keeper couldn't hold, and Guyon Ferdandez's header on 89 wrapping it up following a nice run and cross from Randy Wolters, who deserves to score every week just for his name.
El Makrini's neat diagonal finish for Roda in injury time was scant consolation. They were abject and (cliche alert) on this form look destined for the Erste-Divisie.
