Feyenoord booked a difficult victory over PEC Zwolle on Sunday. Trainer Arne Slot, who returned to the old nest, saw his team turn a 1-0 deficit into a 1-2 victory. Luis Sinisterra starred with an own goal and a good side goal; the winning goal went to Cyriel Dessers. The victory gives Feyenoord a four-point lead over AZ, which will play against FC Twente on Sunday.
After Feyenoord’s excellent performance in Serbia (2-5 win against Partizan Belgrade), Slot decided not to change too much: Ofir Marciano was forced to replace the injured goalkeeper Justin Bijlow, while Guus Til returned from a suspension in the place of Jens Toornstra. Reiss Nelson and Dessers kept the coach’s confidence up front. At PEC Zwolle, Dick Schreuder saw no reason to make changes after the victory at Fortuna Sittard (0-1).
Early in the game, the broken PEC striker Oussama Darfalou was stopped by Marciano, after which Feyenoord took the upper hand, without creating too much. After half an hour, Cyriel Dessers seemed to be on his way to a goal, but the striker did not find a quick solution after passing keeper Kostas Lamprou. PEC struck in injury time of the first half via Bram van Polen, who found the ball somewhat fortunately at the feet and blasted from fifteen meters against the bottom of the bar. The ball bounced off the ground again on the crossbar and seemed to come back into play. Luis Sinisterra unfortunately ran the ball into his own Feyenoord goal, but the goal was credited to Van Polen, whose attempt had already crossed the line: 1-0.
After the break Feyenoord was powerless for a long time. A yellow card for Orkun Kökçü was another damper for the visitors, as the number 10 will be suspended against Ajax next week. Halfway through the second half, Feyenoord promptly equalized. After a struggle for the ball in the center circle, Sinisterra sprinted away with it. He passed Van Polen and took a shot, which was changed by Yuta Nakayama and left goalkeeper Lamprou without a chance. Not much later, PEC got away well when Maikel van der Werff only received a yellow card for a handball, depriving Linssen of an open chance. The video arbitration saw no reason to call Van den Kerkhof to order.
The match was then interrupted for about thirteen minutes after fireworks were thrown into Feyenoord’s sixteen-meter area by the home crowd. Marciano was left a scratch from the explosions. After the interruption, Feyenoord took the game to itself. Who else but Dessers acted as savior of Feyenoord: with a vicious shot from the turn he found the top left corner after Mees de Wit slipped away. Despite a final offensive by PEC, Feyenoord held out. For Feyenoord this was the 500th victory in the Eredivisie. Only Ajax (613) and PSV (554) have more. Next week awaits the match against Ajax, in which a last attempt can be made to return to the title fight.
Cyriel Dessers delivers @Feyenoord three points in Zwolle! †#PECFEY pic.twitter.com/Jqa55rDBPx
— ESPN NL (@ESPNnl) March 13, 2022