Two of last season's top eight go head-to-head at the Stadion Galgenwaard on Sunday as FC Utrecht and Sparta Rotterdam kick off their respective Eredivisie campaigns.
Meeting for the third time this year, the teams will aim to lay down an early marker to begin a new season where both of them will be expected to deliver.
Match preview
© Reuters
Sparta Rotterdam eased past Excelsior in their final warm-up fixture two Saturdays ago which ended 3-0 at the Van Donge & De Roo Stadion.
Vito van Crooy scored a second-half brace in the space of 15 minutes to put Henk Fraser's men in firm control, before Emanuel Emegha wrapped things up in stoppage time.
De Kasteelheren will now seek to avoid a repeat of their poor start to the 2020-21 campaign, where they picked up just three points from their opening seven games.
Saturday's visitors did recover in the second half of the season, but another underwhelming start this time could have greater consequences in their pursuit of continental qualification.
After going unbeaten in their first nine pre-season fixtures, Utrecht suffered consecutive defeats to wrap up their preparations for the new campaign on the back foot.
Fortuna Sittard inflicted the most recent loss on Rene Hake's men in a 3-2 thriller on Saturday, which was ultimately decided by Mats Seuntjens's penalty just past the hour mark.
The Domstedelingen finished in sixth place for the third consecutive time last term, but their hope of securing European football was dashed by Feyenoord, who claimed a 2-0 win in the playoff final back in May.
In a season where they fared considerably better on the road, Saturday's hosts conceded the most goals of any top-half team on home turf in the 2019/20 campaign.
However, their record against this weekend's opponents makes for good reading as they have won each of the last five home meetings, keeping clean sheets in all but one of them.
- D
- W
- W
- W
- L
- L
- W
- D
- D
- L
- W
Team News
Reda Akmum is unavailable for the home side as he continues his spell on the sidelines with a knee injury which he picked up in February.
Tommy St Jago featured in the hosts' clash versus Fortuna last time out, but that looks to have come at some personal expense as the 21-year-old defender picked up a knee problem.
With his clincher versus Excelsior, Emanuel Emagha netted his fourth pre-season goal and heads into this weekend's clash with the wind in his sails.
Vito van Crooy is in line to make his competitive debut since joining from VVV-Venlo after he opened his account for the visitors in the aforementioned game.
FC Utrecht possible starting lineup:
Oelschlagel; Warmerdam, Janssen, Ter Avest, Benamar; Boussaid, Timber, Maher; Kerk, Ramselaar, Douvikas
Sparta Rotterdam possible starting lineup:
Van Leer; Jans, Vriends, Beugelsdijk, Pinto; Harroui, Auassar, Goudmijn; Thy, Emagha, Van Crooy
We say: FC Utrecht 2-0 Sparta Rotterdam
Utrecht will aspire to continue their impressive record in this fixture, which has largely been one-sided over the years. While we expect the visitors to put up a good fight, we are also backing the home team to come out on top in a dominant manner.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a FC Utrecht win with a probability of 48.35%. A win for Sparta Rotterdam had a probability of 27.01% and a draw had a probability of 24.6%.
The most likely scoreline for a FC Utrecht win was 1-0 with a probability of 10.15%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (9.46%) and 2-0 (8.24%). The likeliest Sparta Rotterdam win was 0-1 (7.2%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (11.67%). The actual scoreline of 4-0 was predicted with a 1.8% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that FC Utrecht would win this match.
