The duel between FC Utrecht and RKC Waalwijk in the Eredivisie went miraculously on Saturday. The meeting in De Galgenwaard ended in 2-2, partly because a goal by Mike van der Hoorn in minute 97 was rejected by the VAR. It was a special game anyway, as the arbitration temporarily suspended the game after more than twenty minutes because of the objects that were thrown on the field. Finally, the match between the teams of René Hake and Thijs Oosting was resumed after half an hour of play and the final whistle was finally blown at 11.32 PM.
FC Utrecht started the match: Simon Gustafson was allowed to strike out from the edge of the penalty area after four minutes and shot the ball with the left into the bottom corner. A few minutes later, however, the equalizer seemed to appear on the scoreboard. RKC received a penalty after a clear foul by Willem Janssen on Richard van der Venne. Jens Odgaard went behind the ball, but had to wait a long time because the fans of FC Utrecht threw all kinds of things on the field.
Odgaard then shot in weakly and goalkeeper Maarten Paes saved. Arbiter Richard Martens saw how more empty cups were thrown on the field and stopped the game for a while. After twenty minutes it was a hit for Odgaard when he received the ball from Vurnon Anita and scored the equalizer through Paes’ legs: 1-1. The match was eventually stopped by Martens not much later because the fans of the home team continued to misbehave and kept throwing objects on the field.
The game was only resumed after half an hour, but not before Martens received a stinging flute concert. FC Utrecht was clearly the dominant party after the resumption. Keeper Etienne Vaessen saw players from the Domstedelingen pop up in front of him almost non-stop, but it was still the RKC that reached the halftime signal with a lead. After a wonderful counter, the ball came through Van der Venne for the left of Alexander Büttner, who then drove it into the intersection in a wonderful way: 1-2.
Mark van der Maarel and Mimoun Mahi came in for Adam Maher and Janssen after the break. FC Utrecht started the second half well, despite a miss by Sander van de Streek, and after 51 minutes Martens pointed to the spot. Ahmed Touba slid Anastasios Douvikas down, after which Douvikas scored the 2-2 himself. FC Utrecht’s storm subsided a bit and RKC became a little more dangerous again.
A shot by Van der Venne went just wide and on the other side a shot by Django Warmerdam was deflected. In the final phase it was FC Utrecht again that seemed to lay more claim to the victory. Mike van der Hoorn’s header from a corner went over half a meter and in the seventh minute he seemed to score when he aimed the ball past Vaessen from close range into the far corner. However, the VAR noted hands by Adrián Dalmau.