Two teams who have turned a corner of late go head to head in round 11 of the 2024-25 Eredivisie season as Fortuna Sittard welcome Heerenveen to the Fortuna Sittard Stadion on Sunday.
The home side are unbeaten in five straight matches leading up to this one, while their visitors will be looking to make it three wins on the spin to continue their recent upturn in form.
Match preview
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Fortuna Sittard made light work of the challenge posed by De Treffers to book their place in the next stage of the KNVB Beker thanks to a commanding 4-1 triumph in Tuesday's round-of-16 encounter at Sportpark Zuid.
Tim Waterink's opener in the early exchanges of the second half was cancelled out by a Niels Kornelis own goal after which Alessio Da Cruz struck to give Danny Buijs's men the lead before Ezequiel Bullaude grabbed a late double to put the result beyond doubt.
Since losing four straight Eredivisie matches between August 31 and September 22, the Fortunezen have now picked up three wins and two stalemates from their subsequent five outings across all competitions.
While their attacking output could really do with some beefing up, Fortuna Sittard have kept clean sheets in three of the aforementioned five matches to take their tally of shutouts for the season to five—currently matched by only Ajax in the entire division.
Fortuna Sittard will be hoping their newly found defensive solidity comes in handy against an opposing outfit who netted six goals across both of last season's league meetings en route to four points from a possible six.
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Going up against lower league opposition, Heerenveen would have been expected to comfortably see off the challenge of IJsselmeervogels, but that was not the case when the teams faced off on Tuesday.
Robin van Persie's men got their noses in front through Jacob Trenskow but soon found themselves trailing to strikes from Bjorn van Gorkom and Thomas Beekman before Ion Nicolaescu and Levi Smans registered off the bench to secure a hard-fought 3-2 win.
Just prior that, De Superfriezen eased past Sparta Rotterdam in a 2-0 victory on Saturday to move up to 12th place in the Eredivisie table, three points clear of the relegation playoff spot and as many points shy of the top half.
Heerenveen's cup victory in midweek ended an eight-game winless run on the road dating back to April, and Saturday's visitors will now go in search of consecutive wins away from home for the first time in over a year.
Kicking off the new month with all three points would certainly be a welcome boost for Heerenveen ahead of their home encounter against Go Ahead Eagles before the league temporarily halts for the final international break of the year.
Team News
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Following his double last time out, Ezequiel Bullaude has now found the back of the net four times in his last six matches for Sittard and will be looking to deliver the goods once again.
Rodrigo Guth's return to action from a one-game ban has coincided with his side's change in fortunes defensively, and the Brazilian is expected to retain his place in the XI.
Having scored in back-to-back games for Heerenveen, Jakob Trenskow is now up to six direct goal contributions—three goals and three assists—for his new employers since joining from Kalmar.
Twenty-one-year-old Daniel Seland Karlsbakk was fit enough to be named on the bench last time out, but it remains to be seen if he will play any part in this weekend's contest.
Fortuna Sittard possible starting lineup:
Branderhorst; Dijks, Guth, Adewoye, Pinto; Fosso, Rosier; Aiko, Bullaude, Dahlhaus; Erceg
Heerenveen possible starting lineup:
Noppert; Kohlert, Bochniewicz, Hopland, Braude; Conde, Olsson; Trenskow, Brouwers, Nunnely; Nicolaescu
We say: Fortuna Sittard 2-1 Heerenveen
Fortuna Sittard have turned things around of late and are favourites to emerge victorious against an opposing side without a point away from home in the league so far.
All evidence points to a victory for the home side here, although we expect the visitors to make it a lively contest.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Adepoju Marvellous
