FC Twente and Ajax meet at De Grolsch Veste on Sunday in gameweek 12 of the 2026-27 Eredivisie campaign, with both sides starting the day inside the top four and one of them able to finish the weekend at the summit. It is a fixture that carries more than early-season weight because both clubs arrive on winning runs and both have just handled European business in midweek.
The search around Twente Vs Ajax is easy to understand. Twente beat Pafos 3-1 on Thursday after a 9-0 away win over SBV Excelsior, while Ajax followed a 6-1 victory over Midtjylland in the Conference League by beating AZ Alkmaar in their last league outing. Twente have now won five straight matches and remain one of three teams with a perfect Conference League record, leaving them in pole position to reach the knockout stages of a UEFA tournament for the first time since 2011.
For Joel Drommel, the match lands in the middle of a run that has quietly become essential to Twente’s season. With Lars Unnerstall still sidelined, Drommel should make a ninth consecutive start in goal, while Stav Lemkin, Max Bruns and Filip Thorvaldsen are also out. That means Twente go into a game of real consequence without several pieces they would normally lean on, even as their numbers remain impressive: they have conceded only 10 league goals, the fewest in the Eredivisie, and have scored first in eight of their last nine league outings.
Ajax bring their own sharp edge. They are the only Eredivisie side with a perfect away record, have won five consecutive matches and have broken the deadlock in each of their last five games. They are also chasing consecutive victories at De Grolsch Veste for the first time since 2021, which gives Sunday’s trip a specific test: can they keep the perfect away record intact against a side that has already shown it can hurt them?
The recent history is not one-sided enough to settle that answer for them. Twente have beaten Ajax just once in the last five meetings, but that win came in April when Ramiz Zerrouki and Bart van Rooy scored in a 2-1 result. Ajax, meanwhile, have conceded first in five of the last six editions of this fixture, a reminder that the early spell of the match often matters more than the reputation attached to it.
There is also a practical problem for Ajax to manage. They are contending with up to eight potentially missing players this weekend, with Caio Henrique and Anton Gaaei absent at the back and Sofyan Amrabat and Julian Brandt missing from midfield options. That stretches their depth just as the game asks them to sustain a perfect away record against one of the division’s tightest defenses. If Twente can repeat their habit of scoring first, the balance of the match could tilt quickly; if Ajax start strongly again, they will have a clear path to a result that would keep their push near the top moving through Sunday.
