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Over the weekend, nine matches of the Dutch Eredivisie championship were played in the Netherlands, with the biggest surprise coming from the Heerenveen club, who defeated Amsterdam's Ajax away. After this loss, the capital club dropped from second place to fourth.
In this match, the victory was determined by a single goal from Lasse Nilsson in the 18th minute. Both AZ Alkmaar and Twente Enschede successfully took advantage of this unexpected stumble.
Alkmaar had no trouble at all defeating Utrecht 4-0 away. Maarten Martens and Shota Arveladze scored in the first half, while Moussa Dembele and Danny Koevermans added a goal each in the second half.
Twente also easily defeated NEC Nijmegen away. All the goals were scored by the visitors in the second half - Kennedy Bakircioglu and Sharbel Touma each scored once.
Defending champions PSV Eindhoven won at home by a score of 2-0 against RKC Waalwijk and firmly lead the championship. In this match, PSV solved everything in the first half - Jefferson Farfan scored in the 3rd minute, and Alcides scored the second goal before half-time with a great assist from Alex.
After the weekend's matches, AZ Alkmaar became the closest pursuers of PSV, trailing the champions by 8 points. Twente is one point behind them, with Ajax two points behind.
The club trying to shake off the label of absolute underdog, Excelsior Rotterdam, won a dramatic victory away against Vitesse Arnhem at the very end of the match. The hosts took the lead after Danko Lazovic's goal, but Excelsior managed to equalize the result in the second half. Ruud Knol scored again for the visitors approximately eight minutes before the end of the match. With seven minutes left, Excelsior equalized again through Eldridge Rojer, and then took the lead with a goal from one of their leaders, Andwele Slory. After this victory, Excelsior rose to 16th place.
The absolute underdog of the championship remains the Hague team, who lost 3-1 away to Heracles Almelo. Den Haag is 4 points behind RKC in 17th place.
Weekend results:
PSV 2 - 0 RKC 3' [1 - 0] J. Farfan 19' [2 - 0] Alcides
Ajax 0 - 1 Heerenveen 18' [0 - 1] L. Nilsson
Utrecht 0 - 4 AZ 18' [0 - 1] M. Martens 22' [0 - 2] S. Arveladze 67' [0 - 3] M. Dembele 86' [0 - 4] D. Koevermans
NEC 0 - 3 Twente 48' [0 - 1] K. Bakircioglu 54' [0 - 2] S. Touma 69' [0 - 3] S. Touma
Willem II 0 - 0 Sparta
Groningen 3 - 1 NAC 6' [1 - 0] M. Fledderus 50' [1 - 1] E.d. Graaf 67' [2 - 1] E. Nevland 79' [3 - 1] K.v.d. Laak (penalty)
78' M. Zonneveld (NAC) sent off
Vitesse 2 - 3 Excelsior 15' [1 - 0] D. Lazovic 64' [1 - 1] J. Voskamp 72' [2 - 1] R. Knol 83' [2 - 2] E. Rojer 86' [2 - 3] A. Slory
Feyenoord 1 - 1 Roda 56' [0 - 1] S. Cissé 83' [1 - 1] P.v. Hooijdonk
Heracles 3 - 1 Den Haag 35' [1 - 0] R. Maas (penalty) 68' [1 - 1] M. Mols 77' [2 - 1] I. Gluscevic 83' [3 - 1] K. Bridji
League table
