10 July 2007, by Sean Gillen

Manuel da Costa 06/07 season review

Rising PSV Eindhoven star secures dramatic title win

The first league title win of Manuel da Costa’s career arrived in his debut season in Dutch football with PSV, and the young defender’s rapid progression shows no signs of slowing down.

The versatile France-born defender moved to Holland after a successful French League Cup winning season with Nancy in 2005/06, with the 20-year-old making a huge step-up in order to further his career.

He had to wait for his opportunity at the Phillips Stadium, but da Costa made a goalscoring debut for PSV in late October during a 3-1 win over AZ Alkmaar. As a result, da Costa began to enjoy much more opportunities in the first team, and made his Champions League debut in a 2-0 home win against Galatasaray.

The AZ win was the start of an 11-match winning run in the league for PSV, seeing the champions sitting top of the table at the halfway stage. Having waited until two months into the season to make his debut, da Costa started a further seven matches in the month following his debut, with his ability to play across the backline a useful asset to coach Ronald Koeman.

PSV enjoyed a sensational win over Arsenal in the Champions League last-16 stage, with da Costa playing in the 1-0 victory in the home leg, but missing the 1-1 draw in London through injury. The team bowed out to Liverpool in the quarter-finals, although again injury restricted da Costa’s involvement.

With da Costa in and out of the side in the second half of the season, mainly due to injury, PSV stayed top of the pile until a remarkable near collapse in the final weeks of the season. Just one win in six games saw PSV throw away a healthy lead at the top to go into the final round of games in third place, behind Ajax and new leaders, AZ.

However, both of their rivals faltered and a 5-1 win over Vitesse on the final day of the campaign was enough to see PSV retain their title, and for da Costa to win the first major honour of what is an increasingly promising career.

                          Season stats - Manuel da Costa

                        Substitute appearances in brackets