Excelsior host FC Volendam at Stadion Woudestein on Sunday evening, 10 May 2026, in the VriendenLoterij Eredivisie, and both clubs arrive with plenty still on the line. This is the kind of late-season meeting that can shape the mood for the whole summer. Excelsior sit 14th on 34 points, five clear of the drop zone in a tight lower-mid-table pack, while Volendam are 16th on 31 points and know a bad night here would drag them deeper into trouble.
There’s no European glamour or cup romance attached to this one. It’s survival, simple as that. Excelsior have the slightly healthier cushion and the better home platform, while Volendam’s away record has been a mess for most of the season. That gives the hosts the edge, but not much comfort. One slip and the pressure swings back immediately.
Excelsior Form & Analysis
Excelsior come into this on the back of a proper lift. Their 3-2 win away at FC Groningen on 2 May was exactly the sort of result a team in their position needed — brave, open, and just about controlled enough to get over the line. They scored early through Tika de Jonge, added more through Casper Widell and Younes Taha, and even after Groningen kept pushing, Excelsior found another gear when Derensili Sanches Fernandes and Gyan de Regt got involved in the final stretch. That was their third game without a loss, and it followed a wild 5-0 home demolition of FC Utrecht. That one mattered. Not just the scoreline, but the manner of it. They were ruthless.
Before that run, the picture was a touch more uneven. A 2-2 draw at PEC Zwolle showed they can trade punches away from home, but the 0-2 home defeat to NEC Nijmegen was a reminder that their defensive concentration can still wobble badly. A 1-1 draw at Heracles and a narrow 2-1 loss at Feyenoord earlier in the spring suggest a side that’s rarely been blown away, but hasn’t always found enough control either. Still, the recent trend is encouraging. They’ve won their last match, and they’ve lost only once in their last four. That’s a decent place to be in May.
At home, Excelsior’s numbers are a little strange. They’ve taken 17 points from their own ground, with five wins, two draws and nine defeats, scoring 19 and conceding 21. That’s not the profile of a team you'd trust blindly, and the league ranking at home — 16th — tells you they’ve had too many flat afternoons in front of their own crowd. Yet the upside is obvious. They can score here. When they’re sharp, they’re capable of turning a game fast, and the five-goal burst against Utrecht wasn’t some freakish one-off. Excelsior have scored in most of their better recent outings, and their attacking game has enough speed to trouble a Volendam back line that travels badly.
The concern is still the same one that’s hung around them all season. They’ve been loose enough defensively to keep games alive, which is useful for BTTS punters but dangerous for anyone wanting calm. You can see why this one feels like a goals game, not a cagey one. Excelsior are at their best when the tempo stays high. That won’t change on Sunday.
FC Volendam Form & Analysis
Volendam arrive with a far shakier spring behind them. Their last six have been a slog: a 0-2 home defeat to SC Heerenveen, a 2-0 win at Heracles, a 2-1 loss at FC Twente, a goalless home draw with Feyenoord, a 0-0 friendly away to Ajax, and a 2-0 league defeat at Sparta Rotterdam before that. There are crumbs of encouragement in there, especially the away win at Heracles, but the broader picture is grim. They’ve lost four of their last six in competitive action, and the defeats tend to follow a familiar pattern: they struggle to carry threat for long spells, then one concession turns into two.
The Heerenveen game summed it up neatly. Volendam weren’t hammered, and the shot count was respectable, but they still left empty-handed. Against Twente, they stayed alive until late before falling 2-1 away. Against Feyenoord, they dug in for a point. That tells you they’re not easy to break all the way down, but it also tells you they don’t often do enough at the other end. The attack has been patchy all season. Thirty-three league goals is a poor return, and with 52 conceded, the balance isn’t kind to them.
Away from home, the numbers are even harsher. Volendam have only 8 points on the road, with two wins, two draws and 12 defeats, plus a ghastly 10 goals scored and 31 conceded. That’s relegation-level away form, because that’s exactly what it is. You don’t survive much in this league while averaging less than a goal per away game and shipping close to two. When they’re on the road, Volendam too often spend long periods defending deep and never quite find a way to relieve the pressure. The odd result pops up — Heracles was one, and the 0-0 at Ajax in a friendly showed they can stay organised — but those moments haven’t built into any sort of reliable away identity.
Rick Kruys will know the task. They can’t simply sit and hope. If they retreat too far, Excelsior will keep coming until something opens. That’s the problem for Volendam. They don’t defend well enough to trust a pure low-block plan, and they don’t score enough to make a passive approach safe. Can they make this messy enough to nick something? Maybe. But the away record says otherwise.
Head-to-Head
These two have served up a lively rivalry over the last few seasons, and Excelsior have had the better of it more often than not. Their most recent meeting came on 20 September 2025, when Excelsior won 2-1 away at Volendam. Before that, they were more than comfortable in a 4-1 win on the same ground in April 2025 during the Eerste Divisie, and they also hammered Volendam 4-0 at home in April 2024 in the top flight. That’s a pattern Volendam won’t enjoy revisiting.
There have been exceptions. Volendam beat Excelsior 3-1 in October 2023 and won 3-2 in May 2023, both in the Eredivisie, so this isn’t a one-way street. But the recent edge sits with Excelsior, and the meetings have generally leaned toward open football. Five of the last six between them have gone over 2.5 goals, which fits the feel of this fixture down the years. It’s usually not a sleepy one.
We Predict: Both Teams To Score
We are backing Both Teams To Score at 4/7 here. Our accumulator betting guide is a useful companion here because it breaks down accumulator betting including how to build combos without padding the slip. Excelsior’s recent run has been built on scoring freely, while Volendam have shown enough away from home to nick a goal even when they’re second-best. That’s the key. One side has the stronger home attack, the other has just enough in transition to make life awkward, and neither defence has been trustworthy for long spells.
The scoreline call is 2-1 to Excelsior. That fits the shape of the fixture and the current form. Excelsior should create the better chances at home, but Volendam’s route to a goal is pretty clear too, especially if the game opens up after the first half-hour. If you want a slightly firmer angle, Excelsior to win and both teams to score is the kind of combo that will appeal. But the straight BTTS play looks the cleanest.
