Vitesse took over fourth place in the Eredivisie from FC Twente on Sunday afternoon. The resilient formation of trainer Thomas Letsch won 2-1 against Heracles Almelo at home. Lois Openda was the great hero on the side of Vitesse with two goals, which against the Pride of the North had to come back from an early deficit. Heracles is in disappointing sixteenth place after already the tenth defeat of this season in the Eredivisie.
The home team won fairly easily from NS Mura (3-1) in the group stage of the Conference League on Thursday. The lead on number three Tottenham Hotspur is therefore three points, but wintering in a European context is still doubtful. Due to a flood of corona cases, the game between Stade Rennes and Tottenham was canceled and UEFA has not yet made a final decision on whether or not to make up for the final group match. Meanwhile, the focus at Vitesse is on the Eredivisie, although the start against Groningen was not as desired by the Arnhem team.
Vitesse did look for the attack against Groningen in the initial phase, but it did not yield an opening goal in the first twenty minutes of the meeting. In fact, it was the visitors from Almelo who took the lead in GelreDome in the 22nd minute. Nikolai Laursen broke the spell for the low flyer after good preparatory work by Kaj Sierhuis: 0-1. The euphoria on the side of Heracles was short-lived, however, because after more than an hour of play, Openda hit his left leg: 1-1. Heracles reached halftime with a tie, mainly thanks to goalkeeper Janis Blaswich, but four minutes after the restart, things still went wrong for the ailing team of trainer Frank Wormuth.
The agile Sondre Tronstad was knocked down in Heracles’ penalty area, which put the ball at eleven meters. Openda went behind the ball and Vitesse took the lead impeccably: 2-1. It was already the ninth season goal of the attack leader of the Arnhem club. In terms of goals, Openda is equal to Guus Til and Sébastien Haller and only has to let Bryan Linssen (10) lead on the top scorers list in the Eredivisie. Maximilian Wittek almost hit the mark from a free kick when Max Verstappen won the Formula 1 world title. His attempt, however, went just wide. Heracles certainly knocked on the door in the last twenty minutes, but Vitesse managed to add the ninth victory of this year in character.