Vitesse is still empty-handed after three games in the Eredivisie. The home game against sc Heerenveen was also painfully lost: 0-4. Kjell Scherpen made his debut in goal at the Arnhem club, but made little impression and could have done more with the first two goals against. Sydney van Hooijdonk eventually scored three times.
Thomas Letsch, the trainer of Vitesse, has little choice these days. Few direct reinforcements have come to Arnhem and so he has to fall back on the players who already lost the last two games. Only in the goal could he inject fresh blood with Scherpen. The line-up of Heerenveen, which last week held Feyenoord at 0-0 in De Kuip, had no surprises. Kees van Wonderen saw no reason to change his team.
The fans of Vitesse urged their team to be on top of it at Heerenveen from minute one, but the opposite was true. The Frisians started excellent and after five minutes the ball was already in the net behind Scherpen. Amin Sarr managed to keep the ball in his possession in the penalty area and then found Van Hooijdonk, who managed to get the ball past Scherpen into the far corner from a difficult angle: 0-1. Heerenveen then smelled blood and wanted more.
The home team couldn’t get a foot on the ground and after half an hour Letsch intervened. He changed his formation by switching defender Tomas Hajek for attacker Mohamed Sankoh and hoped to get more grip that way. That was partly successful: Vitesse came into the game slightly better, but had to concede another goal just before half-time. After a mistake by Scherpen, Sarr arrived in time to score the 0-2 and unleash a flute concert in GelreDome.
That goal, registered just before the break, was a sledgehammer blow for Letsch’s men. After the break, the waves of attack were carried out with a lot less conviction than in the last fifteen minutes before the break and that was good news for Heerenveen, which took it easy and waited for the chance to decide the match. Twenty minutes before the end the time had come: after a misstep by Sarr, Van Hooijdonk found the ball in its way and, on the edge of offside, tapped the 0-3 against the ropes. With the 0-4 of Van Hooijdonk, who completed his hat-trick after a cross from Sarr again, the humiliation for Vitesse was complete.
That was it and that means that Vitesse has still not taken a point in the Eredivisie after three rounds of play. Only Fortuna Sittard and Go Ahead Eagles didn’t book any results yet, but those two teams will come into action later this round and can therefore change that. After the simple victory in GelreDome, Heerenveen is the proud number six in the Eredivisie. However, there are still three teams that can overtake the Frisians this weekend.