Fortuna Sittard heads to De Kuip on Saturday with a chance to do something it has only managed four times before: beat Feyenoord away from home for a fifth time. The visitors were sixth in the Eredivisie after ten rounds, and this trip has drawn extra attention because three of the last four meetings between the clubs in Rotterdam ended level.
That record has made Feyenoord vs Fortuna Sittard more awkward than the league table might suggest. Fortuna Sittard has won only four of its 27 previous matches against Feyenoord in De Kuip, yet those wins have come in separate bursts that still echo now: the 1989/90 match, the October 1997 meeting and the 6 May 2001 game all ended in away victories, and the pattern is unusual enough to keep the fixture alive in memory.
The 1989/90 match offered the first warning. Feyenoord, coached by Pim Verbeek, finished that season in 11th place and went out early in the cup competition and in Europe, while Fortuna Sittard, under Jos Mordang, led 2-0 in De Kuip before the match was abandoned after 83 minutes. Mordang put Fortuna Sittard ahead in the 34th minute and Richard de Vries made it 2-0 about ten minutes before the end, a result that sat uneasily with Feyenoord’s wider collapse that year.
The next reminder came in October 1997, when Fortuna Sittard returned with Bert van Marwijk in charge and left with a 3-1 win under Leo Beenhakker’s Feyenoord. Patrick Paauwe opened the scoring in the 59th minute, Ronald Hamming struck twice, and Paul Bosvelt scored for Feyenoord in a match that kept Fortuna Sittard’s De Kuip history from feeling like an isolated accident.
Then came 6 May 2001, when Frans Thijssen’s side won 3-2 in a game that summed up the club’s strange comfort in Rotterdam. Hamming scored after 16 minutes, Jochem van der Hoeven made it 2-0 before half-time, and Feyenoord, then coached by Bert van Marwijk, clawed back through Igor Korneev with goals in the 76th minute and four minutes later. Joost Volmer settled it three minutes after the equalizer. For Danny Buijs, who is being mentioned again in the build-up to this trip, that kind of script is exactly why Feyenoord cannot treat Fortuna Sittard as a routine home assignment. The numbers say the visitors have only four wins in 27 De Kuip visits, but they also say this stadium has seen enough surprises to make another one imaginable. Saturday is the next test of whether Feyenoord can finally close the door.
