Sunday, October 31, 2021 at 2:04 pm• Jeroen van Poppel • Last update: 14:11

Feyenoord managed to beat Sparta Rotterdam at the last minute on Sunday afternoon. The little uplifting city derby seemed to be heading for a goalless draw, until Cyriel Dessers put the ball in in stoppage time: 0-1. As number three in the Eredivisie, Arne Slot’s team is now two and four points behind PSV and Ajax, who have both played one more game. Sparta remains stuck in seventeenth place.

Slot made one change at Feyenoord: Alireza Jahanbakhsh returned to the basic team instead of Fredrik Aursnes. The audience present at Het Kasteel was anything but spoiled in the first half, as both teams were barely able to record highlights. Only at the end of the first half did Feyenoord succeed in testing Maduka Okoye three times in a row. The Sparta goalkeeper made two fine saves on shots by Jahanbakhsh. A loud bang from Luis Sinisterra, however, let Okoye slip through his hands. The goalie was lucky that the ball ended up on the roof of his goal.

Before the break, Sparta had only one threatening moment. Adil Auassar saw his shot being touched by defender Marcus Pedersen from eighteen yards, after which Justin Bijlow alertly tapped the ball over his goal. In a match in which real opportunities were clearly scarce, Feyenoord should have taken the lead seven minutes after the break via Bryan Linssen. The striker received a perfect low cross from Sinisterra, but was unable to push the ball under Okoye.

Sinisterra tried moments later with a vicious shot from about sixteen yards, which was tapped away with difficulty by Okoye. Tom Beugelsdijk then prevented a Feyenoord attacker from typing the rebound. In an attempt to take the win, Slot brought in Cyriel Dessers and Aursnes after an hour of play. Twelve minutes before the end, Dessers appeared threatening for the first time, but the striker was unable to put his foot against a ‘head pass’ from Sinisterra. In the second minute of injury time it was still hit for Dessers. The Belgian was in the right place at the far post to suddenly place a corner kick in the far corner: 0-1.