NEC was promoted last season as number seven in the Kitchen Champion Division and is in the same place in the Eredivisie after eleven rounds. Rogier Meijer’s team impressed on Sunday with a 3-0 win over FC Groningen and won three of the last four games in the competition. Souffian El Karouani has his sights set on achieving European football with NEC.
“I want to do more than maintain,” says the left back at the press conference after the duel with Groningen. “My personal goal is one of the European places. Conference League or Europa League doesn’t matter to me. I want to give the club something. You don’t know whether it will work, we are now seventh and we don’t know what will happen next but this is my goal.” Meijer bets a little lower and simply emphasizes ‘not wanting to finish in eighteen, seventeen or sixteen’. In other words: the trainer wants to play safe with NEC for the post-competition.
Supporter of @necnijmegen are you inside and outside the stadium ???????#necgro pic.twitter.com/ZsPkBMEq9S
— ESPN NL (@ESPNnl) October 31, 2021
“Anything else doesn’t count. It’s about enforcement”, Meijer is quoted by Football International. “This is a great development, but I’m already looking at the next game against sc Heerenveen. Then we have to be back.” Meijer admits, however, that NEC is in a good phase and is getting better as a team. “The young guys who may have done a little less are now recovering. We have to hold on to this. There will come a period when things go a little less, then we have to build on the experienced players.”
The NEC players could not celebrate Sunday’s victory with the supporters, as De Goffert remained empty due to the collapse of part of the branch after the game with Vitesse (0-1) two weeks ago. Outside the stadium, fans did watch the game. “This is the only thing we can give the fans at the moment: points and a nice game,” says El Karouani. “We have now done that twice. We have to continue this line. We could have had more points.” NEC has currently collected seventeen points.