Excelsior host FC Utrecht in the VriendenLoterij Eredivisie on Sunday afternoon, 26 April 2026, with the two clubs heading into the run-in from very different places in the table. Ruben den Uil’s side are stranded in 16th on 28 points and still staring at the wrong end of the division, while Ron Jans’ Utrecht sit seventh on 44 points and have their eyes on a push into the top half of the European places.
For Excelsior, this is about survival, plain and simple. They’ve spent too much of the spring scrapping for scraps, and the pressure is only growing. Utrecht, by contrast, are chasing momentum and consistency more than a rescue job. They’ve got enough points to be safe from immediate trouble, but not enough to be relaxed. A strong finish would keep the ambition alive. A flat one would leave them looking ordinary.
There’s also a familiar edge to this fixture. Utrecht have had the better of it for years, and their recent meetings with Excelsior have usually delivered goals, tension and a fairly clear pecking order. That matters here. Excelsior need a result, but they’re up against a side that knows how to punish mistakes.
Excelsior Form & Analysis
Excelsior’s latest league outing summed up their season in a nutshell. They went to PEC Zwolle on 12 April and came away with a 2-2 draw, which sounds useful enough until you look at the details. They scored early through Thijs Oosting and Derensili Sanches Fernandes, then got dragged into another chaotic game they never really controlled. It was a lively contest, with the match finishing level after late pressure and plenty of openings at both ends. Excelsior have been in too many of those games lately. Entertainment hasn’t been the problem. Control has.
Before that, the sequence was ugly. A 0-2 home defeat to NEC Nijmegen on 4 April stretched the frustration at their own ground, and the 1-1 draw at Heracles Almelo on 20 March offered only a brief pause in the wider slide. The 2-1 defeat at Feyenoord was respectable on paper, but it still ended without points, and home losses to SC Heerenveen and Go Ahead Eagles earlier in March reinforced the same theme. They’re hard to trust, even when they’re competitive. Eight league matches without a win tells the story better than any neat graphic ever could.
At home, the record is poor by any standard that matters. Excelsior have won four, drawn two and lost nine at their own ground, scoring just 14 times and conceding 21. That’s not the profile of a side that can simply turn up and dominate. They’ve been vulnerable in both boxes, and the absence of clean sheets has become a real weight around their necks. The one positive? They do find chances. The problem is that they rarely keep the door shut long enough to make them count. Against an attack like Utrecht’s, that’s a dangerous habit.
FC Utrecht Form & Analysis
Utrecht arrive with a lot more life about them. Their most recent match was a 4-1 home win over SC Telstar on 11 April, and it was the kind of performance that can clear the head. They scored four times, created enough to justify it, and never looked short of ideas once the game opened up. Matisse Didden got the first, then Danny Bakker, Gjivai Zechiël and Dani de Wit all joined in before Jesper Karlsson rounded things off in stoppage time. It was fluent, sharp and ruthless. Exactly what Ron Jans will have wanted after the wild 4-3 loss at PSV Eindhoven a week earlier.
That defeat in Eindhoven was no disgrace, though it did show both sides of Utrecht in one evening. They were brave enough to go toe to toe with the champions and scored three away goals, yet they still came away empty-handed because the defensive balance went missing. Still, that game didn’t derail them for long. Before it, they had beaten Go Ahead Eagles 2-0 at home, won 2-0 away at FC Twente and earlier eased past AZ Alkmaar 2-0 in Utrecht. The draw at Heracles Almelo was the only real grind in that stretch. This is a team that’s been winning games in different ways. That’s a handy trait.
Away from home, Utrecht’s record is decent rather than spectacular: four wins, five draws and six defeats, with 22 goals scored and 23 conceded. That’s a slightly untidy split, and it tells you why they’re not higher in the table. Still, they’re far more dangerous on the road than Excelsior are at home. They score goals away from home, they’re capable of nicking the first one, and they’ve already shown they can travel to difficult grounds and get a result. Mind you, they’re not bulletproof. PSV put them through the wringer. But this isn’t PSV, and Excelsior don’t have that sort of punch.
The balance of their away form points to a side that’ll create chances here. Utrecht don’t need to dominate possession for long spells to be a threat. They just need a few clean moments, and Excelsior have been giving those away all season.
Head-to-Head
This fixture has leaned Utrecht’s way for a while now. The most recent meeting came on 24 August 2025, when Utrecht won 4-1 at home, and that fit the wider trend nicely. Before that, the clubs shared a 1-1 draw in Rotterdam in January 2024, and there was a 2-2 draw in Utrecht back in November 2023. Go a little further back and the picture still favours Jans’ side, with Utrecht winning 1-0 at home in January 2023 and 1-0 away in October 2022.
There’s a clear pattern in the head-to-head. Utrecht tend not to lose this one, and goals have often turned up when these sides meet. Excelsior have struggled to keep Utrecht quiet, even when the scores have stayed close. That’s a warning for Sunday.
We Predict: Both Teams To Score
Both Teams To Score at 8/13 looks the strongest angle here. Excelsior aren’t doing enough to win games regularly, but they’re still finding moments in attack — and they’ve got on the scoresheet in recent matches against PEC Zwolle and Heracles, while also showing they can at least trouble opponents at home. Utrecht, for their part, come in with serious attacking momentum after putting four past Telstar and three past PSV away. They’re not arriving quietly.
The 1-1 correct score feels live too. Utrecht should get chances and probably score first, but Excelsior’s desperation at home can drag them into the contest. You’d expect an open spell either side of half-time. If you want a slightly safer alternative, Utrecht to score first has plenty of appeal given their recent habit of striking early in this matchup and Excelsior’s tendency to concede first.
