The last round of the second period is about to start and the period title is going to be distributed. However, because ESPN wants to broadcast as many matches as possible in the time that there is no audience, the time has been adjusted from 21:00 to 18:45. Can Excelsior manage to grab points in De Goffert?
NEC:
The Nijmegen residents have had a talented team, individual quality and potential toppers for years. Nevertheless, NEC does not compete for promotion places within the competition. NEC suffers from the problem that players find their way out of De Goffert early. Talented players such as Arnaut Danjuma, Ferdi Kadioglu, Maarten Paes, Anthony Musaba and Mike Tresor Ndayishime left early for another club in recent years, but again this year there is another player who can be added to this list. Syb van Ottele was allowed to join the training camp in Marbella for the first time last season, but after only nine official games, the sights were on him. The young central defender leaves for Heerenveen.
A sad thing for the Nijmegen fans, because now is the time for players with individual qualities to assert themselves. NEC even seemed on its way to the period title with an unbeaten run of eleven games. However, there was a striking 0-1 loss to TOP Oss, while it all seemed to be getting more difficult last week. Telstar-away was won 1-7 last season, but Andries Jonker’s team seemed to have feelings of revenge. Partly thanks to the blundering goalkeeper Norbert Alblas, NEC lost 5-2 in Velsen-Zuid. NEC could have taken third place, but thanks to two sad screenings, it now ranks number five in the rankings.
Excelsior:
Although NEC only recently started this moderate period, its opponent Excelsior has been struggling with this problem for some time. After a strong opening match against Young PSV, De Kralingers were suddenly named as the title contender by FOX Sports analysts. After the first half of the season we can conclude that this is not the case at all. In fact, Excelsior is currently well in the right row in fourteenth place. Excelsior is doing just as well as – last season’s last season – Helmond Sport. The team of Marinus Dijkhuizen is looking for a victory, because the last five (!) League matches were lost. Remarkably, the cup match against PEC Zwolle was won, so that Excelsior will battle with MVV Maastricht on January 19 to see who deserves a place in the quarter finals of the glorious cup tournament.
Last game Excelsior did not perform very well. Elias mar Omarsson did not score and then you could already conclude that Excelsior did not score at all. Excelsior created more chances than the opponent in the matches against Cambuur and NAC, but it went down twice. This was particularly striking last week. Excelsior fired no less than 23 shots towards Roy Kortsmit’s goal, while this number was only half at NAC. Nevertheless, NAC Breda scored three times, causing Excelsior to be flattered 0-3.
