Twente plenty for McClaren

McClaren is carried high by his team after the historic win [EPA]

Twente Enschede clinched their maiden Dutch championship title in 45 years of trying by beating 10-man NAC Breda 2-0 on the final day of the season to herald an amazing turnaround for English coach Steve McClaren.

Costa Rican Bryan Ruiz opened the scoring midway through the first half, seconds after Csaba Feher had been sent off for a two-legged tackle on Theo Janssen.

Twente sealed their first title 16 minutes before time when Miroslav Stoch came in from the right to double the lead.

“This was a fantastic afternoon and (it was) amazing how my players handled the enormous pressure,” former England coach McClaren told Eredivisie Live TV.

“The boys did so well today, though they should have scored more, in my opinion, to seal the win earlier but they have been doing this the whole season.

“Last season we lost the cup final (and) finished second in the league but we kept growing and growing and today it proved that we are more experienced after all our big games also in the Europa league.”

Ridiculed

McClaren took over as Twente boss after being ridiculed in his home country following his failure to guide England to the Euro 2008 finals.

Twente finished with 86 points after 34 matches, one point above Ajax Amsterdam who won 4-1 at NEC Nijmegen on Sunday.

Ajax, who could have taken their 30th title if Twente had failed to beat Breda, settled the match in Nijmegen before the interval with Luis Suarez, Demy de Zeeuw and Marko Pantelic on target.

Suarez scored his 35th goal of the season in the second half to become the league’s top scorer before Saidi Ntibazonkiza earned Nijmegen their consolation goal.

AZ Alkmaar and PSV Eindhoven shared the points in a 1-1 draw, with Otman Bakkal opening the scoring after 61 minutes for PSV and Mounir El Hamdaoui equalising eight minutes later.

PSV finished third with 78 points, while Alkmaar slipped to fifth with 62 after being leapfrogged by Feyenoord.

Makaay retires

Former Dutch international striker Roy Makaay marked his final league appearance before retiring with an emotional hat-trick in Feyenoord’s 6-2 rout of Heerenveen.

The 35-year-old striker announced this week he will retire at the end of this season to take up a post at the Rotterdam club’s youth academy.

Makaay fired his third goal 15 minutes from time and was substituted minutes later, leaving the pitch in tears as he was given an ovation by the crowd.

“I didn’t feel nervous before the match, because I never have felt that through my career, but I had a special feeling for my last league match. When I was substituted I realised it ended,” Makaay said.

Makaay headed home an equaliser after 13 minutes from close range and made it 4-2 after 58 minutes.

Two minutes before he was replaced by 17-year-old youth international Luc Castaignos, Makaay added his third with a 20-metre lob over goalkeeper Henk Timmer.

Makaay started his professional career in 1993 at Vitesse Arnhem but had his biggest successes later on with Deportivo Coruna, where he won the Primera Division and became European top scorer, and Bayern Munich where he won the double in 2005 and 2006.

Makaay won 43 caps in which he scored six goals and will play in the second leg in the Dutch Cup final against Ajax Amsterdam, who won the first leg 2-0, on Thursday.