Sunday, May 2, 2021 at 4:21 PM• Mart Oude Nijeweeme

FC Groningen had to swallow their third defeat in a row in the Eredivisie on Sunday afternoon. The team of trainer Danny Buijs performed very poorly at home against Sparta Rotterdam and saw how the visitors triumphed with 1-2. A bright spot was the return of Arjen Robben, who was brought in half an hour before time and with that came into action for the fourth time this season. Sparta rises to ninth place with the victory, while Groningen remains seventh.

Groningen was no shadow of the team that played a good match almost every week earlier this season. The first time the home team made its appearance in the first half was after a quarter game, when Tomás Suslov tried from a great distance with an all or nothing attempt. His shot could easily be caught by goalkeeper Maduka Okoye. Four minutes later it was hit on the other side. Bart van Hintum lost the ball through the axis of the field after a wide pass, after which Aaron Meijers took over and Abdou Harroui effectively lashed out from more than twenty meters with a shot in the top right corner: 0-1.

At that time, the lead was deserved for Henk Fraser’s team. Sparta dominated and took full advantage of a much too static Groningen. Buijs’s team created almost nothing in the first act and came to only two touches of the ball in the enemy sixteen. Mario Engels had the opportunity to double the score before half-time, but his shot from the left side of the field on a pass from Harroui ended on Padt’s outstretched left foot. After the break, the game hardly changed and it was Sparta that struck the clock.

Ten minutes after the break, the team from Rotterdam rewarded themselves for the good game. Padt initially had a reaction to a bet by Lennart Thy, but had no chance on the rebound from Tom Beugelsdijk: 0-2. After an hour of play Buijs then brought Robben in for Patrick Joosten and also granted Ramon Pascal Lundqvist playing minutes. The latter made it even more exciting by sliding a kick from Padt wrongly estimated by Beugelsdijk into the empty goal, but Groningen did not get any further than that. In injury time, the equalizer was not spent on Paulos Abraham, who shot wide for an empty goal on a pass from Mohamed El Hankouri.