Heracles take on the visitors NEC Nijmegen in the round 2 match of Dutch Eredivisie. The match will be played on Friday, August 18th at Erve Asito (Almelo).
Heracles are back in the top Dutch division. The Heraclids are celebrating their 120th anniversary this season. However, both championships came in the first half of the last century, in 1927 and 1941. In recent years, there have been only occasional and conditional successes: reaching the country's cup final, which they lost, making their debut in the Europa League but getting eliminated on penalties by their very first opponent, Arka. More often than not, they had to fight for survival in the Eredivisie, or even more frequently, for a return there. In the previous season, they were in the 2nd division, but they ended it with a victory. A decent result for the first year under the new coach, Lammers, who arrived in Almelo only in 2022. The squad was strengthened before the new season, including the arrival of Jetro Willems. However, it didn't help against Ajax in the first round - they lost 1-4.
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NEC Nijmegen holds on in the Eredivisie but doesn't shine there. The Red-Green-Blacks have never really shown much. They reached the cup final four times, but they lost all decisive matches. The team has often been relegated to the 2nd division of the Netherlands, and in other years, they achieved mediocre results in the top tier. Last season, they only managed to secure 12th place. Furthermore, many players left during the summer, including key players like Diamatta, Marques, Sissoko, and Baldursson. However, they managed to sign/loan several players, including Pereira, Jensen, Roberto Gonzalez, Bass, Larsson, and Ogawu. Perhaps, they haven't fully integrated yet, as evidenced by their loss to Excelsior at home, where they were leading 2-1 and 3-2 but ended up losing.
In the 2021/2022 season, these sides faced each other in Eredivisie matches. Back then, NEC won away and settled for a 0-0 draw at home. In the first round of matches between these teams, they scored a total of 12 goals. So, we should expect at least total over 2.5 goals in this match.
Prediction for the match: Under 2.5 scored goals.
