N.E.C. Nijmegen

Where they stand

• 2026/27 Eredivisie, one match played: N.E.C. lost 1-2 at home to SC Telstar on 8 August, Kaj Sierhuis scoring at 82 minutes after Telstar had led 2-0 inside 24 minutes. The underlying numbers ran the other way by a wide margin — 71% possession, 27 shots with 17 of them inside the box, and an expected-goals reading of about 2.5 to 1.4 — the largest gap between chance creation and result in the opening round. Table position is suppressed after a single match rather than shown. Previous Season, for context and clearly separated from the current one: N.E.C. finished 3rd in 2025/26, 34 played, 16 wins, 11 draws, 7 defeats, 77 goals for and 53 against, 59 points — the club's best-ever Eredivisie finish, its first-ever Champions League qualification, and a lost cup final against AZ.

League record

• 1 match played · 0 points · 1 scored, 2 conceded.Limited confidence

Summer squad changes

8 in, 13 out. Where a move is reported rather than confirmed, or a player is not yet eligible to play, that is stated.

The coach

• Dick Schreuder (53) is head coach for 2026/27 — no coaching change. Appointed spring 2025 on a three-year contract to summer 2028, succeeding Rogier Meijer; 2026/27 is his second season, with two years still to run — a structural contrast with PEC Zwolle's and Fortuna Sittard's coaches, both in their final contracted year. Confirmed in post at the evidence cutoff by his 3 August pre-Olympiacos press conference in Piraeus and by the club's own current team page.

Pre-season

Seven friendlies against opposition ranging from the Dutch third tier to La Liga, in one of which (Anderlecht) the entire starting eleven was changed at half-time, is not a form line and must never be presented as league-form evidence for the Telstar fixture or any other Eredivisie match. The 7-0 win against Al-Fayha FC in particular must not be read as evidence of anything. Pre-season results in this card are used only as evidence of current personnel, fitness and availability (e.g. the Sevilla-friendly injuries), never as a predictor of Eredivisie form.

• Seven friendlies, 2W-1D-4L, 16 scored, 11 conceded. Both wins came against non-European opposition (Japan, Saudi Arabia); all four defeats came against European opposition (Belgian top flight, German second tier, La Liga), and the two nearest the competitive start (Elversberg, Sevilla) both ended in defeat with only one goal scored across them. A second, cutting-the-other-way observation: N.E.C. scored in six of seven friendlies and conceded in six of seven — for a team that scored 77 and conceded 53 in the league, that is behaviourally consistent, not anomalous.Our reading of the evidence · Moderate confidence
• Sierhuis scored three goals in his first pre-season, the most of any N.E.C. player, against wildly uneven opposition. That is a pre-season return and is not read as more than one; the competitive question it raised has since been answered separately, by his 82nd-minute goal in the Eredivisie opener on 8 August 2026 — see profile.keyPlayerRoles.Our reading of the evidence · Limited confidence

How they play

• N.E.C. play with a back three. That is now observed rather than reported: in the Champions League third qualifying round first leg away at Olympiacos on 4 August, Voetbal International rendered the side positionally as a 3-1-4-2 — Crettaz; Storm, Sandler, Fonville; Nejašmić; Ouaissa, Bischoff, Monteiro, Lebreton; Chery, Linssen — with the two widest of the four ahead of the pivot operating as the width providers, since a back three leaves nobody else to hold the touchline. The specific mechanisms that make the system work are reported rather than observed and stay at hypothesis level: wing-backs held very wide as the sole source of width, the outside centre-backs positioned narrow in the half-space to compress the opponent's first line of pressure, and those same outside centre-backs carrying the ball forward. Schreuder's own framing fits it — he has said publicly that his system is not personnel-agnostic and that he needs specific types of players for it.Moderate confidence
• The one competitive performance available shows a side that can defend a European away leg without collapsing: 0-0 at Olympiacos, with the opposition dominating possession in the first half and N.E.C. taking control in the second, and with both teams reducing risk in the closing stages. The back three did not concede, and the defensive line was not settled personnel — Sandler had been reported fit for roughly an hour, and Nejašmić moved from the pivot into central defence during the match. Olympiacos's own coach said afterwards that his side had been outmatched in many areas, which is an opponent's judgement rather than a mechanism, but it is an unusually direct one.Limited confidence
• N.E.C. progressed through Tjaronn Chery finding space between the lines — at 38, repeatedly free in the space the two forwards and the four ahead of the pivot opened up. They created several dangerous situations at Olympiacos and consistently lacked the final ball, which is the specific shape of their problem rather than a general one: the side got into promising positions and did not finish the move. That is consistent with a team whose 77 league goals last season came from a squad that has since sold its record earner and is trying to replace him.Our reading of the evidence · Limited confidence
• Across the three competitive matches of the season so far, N.E.C. have started every one with a back three — and the label put on that shape is not agreed. The Eredivisie opener on 8 August is the one match with a structured record rather than an editorial reading, and it gives a 3-4-2-1, with a back three of Brayann Pereira, Darko Nejasmic and Deveron Fonville; that shape held for the period both goals were conceded in and was abandoned at half-time with the side 2-0 down, so it is a starting-eleven signal rather than a full-match one. For the Champions League second leg on 11 August, four different labels were published for the same eleven players — a 3-1-4-2, a 3-4-2-1, a 3-4-3, and a rendering with a midfield four — and no competition match sheet was obtainable to settle it. The only element every source agrees on is the back three itself, here Tobias Storm, Philippe Sandler and Deveron Fonville. The 4 August reading recorded on the previous version of this card, a 3-1-4-2 with a single holding midfielder, is unchanged and still stands as that match's reading.Moderate confidence

Players who matter most

• Kodai Sano's departure is complete, and this card no longer carries him as an N.E.C. player. PSV announced the transfer officially and presented him on 8 August 2026 — the same day N.E.C. played their Eredivisie opener without him — on a contract to mid-2031, for a reported fee of roughly eur 14.5 million plus bonuses, N.E.C.'s largest outgoing transfer. He appears in neither the Matchweek 1 eleven nor its bench, and not in the 11 August European squad. What that removes is specific: a 22-year-old first-choice central midfielder with 98 N.E.C. appearances, 12 goals and 13 assists since 2023. The fee is reported rather than club-disclosed; the completion is not in doubt.
• Kaj Sierhuis has now scored in competitive football for N.E.C.: the 82nd-minute goal, as a substitute, in the 1-2 Eredivisie home defeat to SC Telstar on 8 August 2026. That supersedes this card's earlier framing of his case as pre-season output only — three goals in seven friendlies, which remains true and remains a friendly return. His European contribution three days later was real but substitute-tier and mixed: introduced at roughly 88 minutes, a goal disallowed deep in stoppage time for an offside earlier in the move, a deflection credited by one aggregator as the assist on the winner, a close-range chance missed in extra time, and a caution. Two Substitute Appearances Do Not Make Him A starter, and nothing here says they do — his place in the forward line is exactly as open as it was.
• Dusan Tadic has started and completed both of N.E.C.'s competitive matches since this card's previous cutoff — the full ninety in the Eredivisie opener and all 120 minutes of the Champions League second leg — and produced measurable creative output in each. In the opener he recorded 8 key passes and 2 Big Chances Created, the highest creative return of any player in the round; three days later he supplied the cross for the 70th-minute equaliser. This is a participation And Output record, and it is not a claim about hierarchy, indispensability or a defined role: his own minute pattern across the eight-day block is uneven rather than simply heavy (a short substitute appearance in the first leg, then 90, then 120), and the position he actually occupied on 11 August is described differently by different outlets and is not settled here.Moderate confidence

What they do well

• A genuinely elite attacking output at competitive level, over a full season: 77 league goals in 2025/26, second-most in the Eredivisie behind only PSV, ahead of Feyenoord, Ajax and FC Twente, delivered by a squad valued far below all three. N.E.C. finished 3rd on attacking output, not on defensive solidity — 53 conceded is worse than four of the five clubs immediately below them.Our reading of the evidence · Moderate confidence
• Coaching continuity and total staff alignment: a head coach in year two of three, with an entire technical staff on contracts to the same date, three of whom worked with him at his previous club. The most contractually aligned coaching group of any club in this production run.
• An unusually complete and current club-published squad record: 30 players with shirt numbers and position groups, no duplicate numbers, all eight 2026 summer arrivals present (including a player signed 27 July, eight days before retrieval), and every departed player correctly absent. The best club squad page encountered across six TeamCard research passes to date.
• Real experience added at low or zero transfer cost, funded by outgoing sales: Tadić (111 Serbia caps), Monteiro, Mor and Sierhuis all arrived free; Schuurs arrived free from Serie A. Five free transfers, one loan, and two fee-bearing deals, against an outgoing window headed by the club transfer record (Önal, €12.5m) and, in progress, a new record (Sano, ~€14.5m) — a heavily positive financial balance even before the Sano deal completes, though no fee is club-disclosed for any 2026 transfer.Our reading of the evidence · Moderate confidence
• A club that has just proved it can beat the champions in a knockout tie: N.E.C. 3-2 PSV in the 2025/26 KNVB Beker semi-final, partially anchored at official-primary level by the club's own departures release, which states in terms that Eli Dasa scored in that win.Moderate confidence
• This squad can compete at a level above the one it was assembled for. N.E.C. drew 0-0 away at Olympiacos in a Champions League qualifier, in a match vi describes as a battle in which they matched a good opponent's intensity, and Olympiacos's own coach said his team had been outmatched in many areas. They did it without Kodai Sano, with a centre-back reported fit for only an hour, and with a summer free transfer, Jamiro Monteiro, dropped straight into the vacated midfield role — which is also the first evidence that the internal answer to Sano's departure works.Moderate confidence

Where they can be got at

• The centre of defence is a documented, multi-source crisis, and it is the position a back-three system (if the reported shape is right) would load hardest. Confirmed at four independent levels: the head coach said publicly on 27 July he wants two more defenders and a goalkeeper and has not seen them arrive; the permanent signing of last season's most-used centre back (Kaplan) collapsed on 28 July; the one centre back N.E.C. did sign (Schuurs) is unavailable to roughly mid-September on his own club's account; and three defenders' availability changed in the final pre-season friendly (Sandler, Ouwejan, Moslih). Counter-evidence, stated: N.E.C. still named seven defenders in a 22-man UEFA list; Sandler was reported fit to play roughly 60 minutes on 4 August; Nuytinck is in the UEFA squad; and regional reporting notes N.E.C. will have real depth once Nuytinck and Schuurs recover.Our reading of the evidence
• 53 goals conceded in a 3rd-place season is a structural exposure, not a footnote: N.E.C. finished third despite a defensive record worse than four of the five clubs below them in the top seven. A team whose league position is built on scoring 77 is structurally more exposed to losing attacking personnel than a team built on conceding few — and N.E.C. have sold or are selling Önal (record sale) and, in progress, Sano, while adding a 37-year-old and a 28-year-old free transfer among the replacements.Our reading of the evidence · Moderate confidence
• A record sale in progress four days before matchweek 1, with no replacement signed: the Sano departure was agreed on this card's own evidence-cutoff day, he left the Olympiacos squad mid-tie for a medical, and he was a first-choice central midfielder in a system reported to use only a two-man pivot. If completed, this removes the slot four days before the Telstar opener.Our reading of the evidence · Moderate confidence
• A pre-season record of 2W-1D-4L, with both wins against non-European opposition (Japan, Saudi Arabia) and the two matches nearest the competitive start (Elversberg, Sevilla) both lost with only one goal scored across them. Counter-evidence, and it is strong: friendly results are not a form line; the entire starting eleven was changed at half-time in at least one match (Anderlecht); two arrivals (Tadić, Mor) had barely joined by the final friendlies; and N.E.C. scored in six of seven friendlies.Our reading of the evidence · Limited confidence
• UEFA squad-quota pressure is a structural constraint, though not in the way this card previously stated it. N.E.C. registered 22 players rather than the permitted 24, and the reason reported by Voetbal International is deliberate flexibility, not exhaustion: the club held two places open hoping to register a new signing the day before the match, and when none arrived it used them on Freek Entius and Willum Willumsson. What remains true is that the club-trained-player requirement constrains who can fill those places, that named squad members are outside the list on registration grounds — never an Eredivisie suspension, see currentState.cardsAndSuspensions — and that selling Dirk Proper, a fifteen-season academy product, eleven days before matchweek 1 removes a club-trained body from a list that has to satisfy that requirement for the rest of the European campaign.Moderate confidence
• Public, on-the-record tension between the head coach and the technical director over unfilled defensive recruitment, ten days before the season. No source characterises this as a crisis and neither does this card — Aalbers's own reply frames it as a normal difference of institutional interests in a market described as more expensive and harder for a Dutch club.Moderate confidence

What we think happens

Each reading is shown with the evidence for it and the evidence against it. Where those pull in different directions, that is the honest state of the picture.

Squad and club news

• N.E.C. confirmed four contract expiries, all formally terminated 1 April: Eli Dasa, Jetro Willems, Virgil Misidjan and Rijk Janse. The same release independently dated three further, later-resolved situations as then "under discussion": Bram Nuytinck (extended), Jasper Cillessen (left) and Danilo Pereira da Silva (loan ended).
• N.E.C. sold Dirk Proper (24), a 185-appearance homegrown midfielder who "frequently wore the captain's armband" and was the longest-tenured player in the squad, to sc Heerenveen — eleven days before matchweek 1 and seven days before a Champions League tie. This simultaneously removes a leadership figure and a club-trained-quota body from the UEFA registration list.
• N.E.C. lost 1-2 to Sevilla FC at the Goffertstadion in their final, best-attended pre-season friendly (31 July) — but the most consequential thing about the match was not the result. Three defenders' availability changed during it: Philippe Sandler left injured, Yassin Moslih left injured, and Thomas Ouwejan sat it out with a minor injury. This cost N.E.C. defensive availability four days before the Champions League tie and eight days before matchweek 1.

• N.E.C. lost the 2025/26 KNVB Beker final 5-1 to AZ, Sunday 19 April 2026, at De Kuip, Rotterdam, having beaten holders PSV 3-2 in the semi-final at Nijmegen (Eli Dasa among the scorers). AZ's cup win took the Europa League berth attached to it, so N.E.C.'s European entry for 2026/27 came entirely from the league finish. The final scoreline rests on a single Omroep Gelderland headline at low-medium confidence; az.nl's own match report was surfaced but not opened in the underlying research pass.
• Bram Nuytinck (36) extended one year, announced 18 June 2026, described by the club as fit and having "fought back" from a cruciate-ligament injury. Nineteen days later, 7 July 2026, he suffered an ankle injury in training, ruled out for "several weeks". Both facts are true and neither cancels the other — a dated contradiction preserved, not smoothed.
• Ahmetcan Kaplan's 2025/26 loan from Ajax expired; a permanent move was agreed in outline, he underwent a medical at N.E.C.'s facilities, and the deal then collapsed at the last moment for an undisclosed reason. He remains an Ajax player and does not appear anywhere in this card's squad, transfers, or depth modelling — N.E.C. must find an alternative centre back.
• Head coach Schreuder publicly stated he wants at least two more defenders and a goalkeeper and has not seen them arrive, naming Nuytinck (injured), Kaplan (returned to Ajax), Sandler (limited minutes) and Schuurs (not fully available until September) as the defensive context. Technical director Aalbers publicly replied that a technical director sometimes has different interests than a coach, in a market described as more expensive and harder for a Dutch club. No source characterises this as a crisis.
• N.E.C. submitted a reduced 22-player UEFA Champions League squad list on 31 July rather than the permitted 24, omitting Koki Ogawa, Adam Tahaui, Willum Willumsson and Vito van Crooij on registration and selection grounds, with Perr Schuurs separately unavailable through injury. The reason for naming 22 is the club's own, and it is not a shortage of club-trained players: Voetbal International reports that N.E.C. deliberately reserved two places so that a late signing could still be registered the day before the match, and when no signing arrived those two places went to Freek Entius and Willum Willumsson on 3 August. What the club-trained-player requirement does constrain is which players are able to fill such a place, and it is retained on that narrower basis only. This is a UEFA-competition registration matter; it is not an Eredivisie suspension and not an Eredivisie eligibility restriction.
• N.E.C. added Freek Entius and Willum Willumsson to the UEFA squad list, taking it to 24, having deliberately kept two spots open "hoping to sign someone over the weekend". Ogawa, Van Crooij and Tahaui remained excluded. The same report is the closest available club-adjacent statement on travelling-squad availability, and it is explicitly scoped to the 4 August fixture only.
• N.E.C.'s UEFA Champions League third-qualifying-round tie against Olympiacos Piraeus is confirmed: Leg 1 away, Tuesday 4 August 2026, 20:00 CEST; Leg 2 home, Tuesday 11 August 2026, 19:30, Goffertstadion — with the Eredivisie opener against SC Telstar (Saturday 8 August, 16:30 CEST, also at the Goffertstadion) sitting exactly between the two legs. The club has itself warned that European participation may still move surrounding fixtures.
• PSV and N.E.C. reached an agreement in principle over Kodai Sano, reported at a fee of roughly €14.5m plus bonuses — N.E.C.'s outgoing transfer record if it completes. Sano left the N.E.C. squad hotel in Greece to travel for a medical scheduled for 5 August, the day after this card's own evidence cutoff, and did not play the 4 August first leg. At This Card'S cutoff The Transfer Had Not Completed: he remains on N.E.C.'s own squad page and UEFA list. See transfers[trf-out-sano] and oq-sano-completion.

Who is available

• Two N.E.C. starters left the pitch with physical problems inside the first 33 minutes of the Champions League second leg on 11 August, and both are now the central questions for the away fixture at Willem II on 15 August. Philippe Sandler, who had already been troubled by a fitness problem during that week, was withdrawn at about 33 minutes; the head coach said afterwards that he expects to be without him for a matter of weeks, while stating openly that he does not have the exact picture. Sami Ouaissa came off at about 26 minutes and is genuinely open rather than doubtful: there is no timeline, and the reports do not even agree on what the problem is, one describing a muscular injury while the coach is reported as suspecting the ankle that troubled Ouaissa in pre-season. Neither has a published diagnosis, and no severity is estimated here. Two earlier doubts have resolved in the other direction: Bram Nuytinck came on late in the same match, which settles whether he can be used, though roughly fourteen minutes settles nothing about a full match; and Darko Nejasmic completed 120 minutes after absorbing the ankle challenge that got an opponent sent off, with no treatment or knock reported by anyone — recorded as a watch item, because finishing a match is not proof of being undamaged. Perr Schuurs remains unavailable to roughly mid-September. That leaves a centre-back group of Deveron Fonville and Tobias Storm, who both played every minute of the second leg, with Brayann Pereira the one replacement to have actually covered for Sandler in a competitive match, and a reported loan move for a young Porto defender that no club has confirmed. Cautions shown in European competition do not carry into the Eredivisie, so the two N.E.C. bookings on 11 August create no domestic suspension risk.Moderate confidence
• N.E.C. have played three competitive matches in eight days across two competitions, the last of them lasting 120 minutes, and the next Eredivisie fixture falls roughly 90 hours after it. The block runs 4 August away at Olympiacos, 8 August at home against Telstar, 11 August at home against Olympiacos again, then 15 August away at Willem II, then a Champions League play-off first leg on 18 or 19 August. Six Players Completed All 120 minutes on 11 August: Gonzalo Crettaz, Tobias Storm, Deveron Fonville, Darko Nejasmic, Dusan Tadic and Tjaronn Chery. Two more, Noe Lebreton and Bryan Linssen, played about 106. Measured across the whole block, Fonville and Crettaz have played every available minute — roughly 300 each — with Chery on about 274, Clement Bischoff about 268 and Nejasmic about 255, none of them with a match off. These are exposure Figures And Nothing More. No source assesses the physical condition of any N.E.C. player, none is inferred here, and no rotation intention is on record in either direction. The counts exclude stoppage time, which is not published per period, so real exposure is higher than every figure above by an unknown amount.Moderate confidence
• The away fixture at Willem II on 15 August is bracketed by European football on both sides, which is the fact that constrains every selection question around it. It falls four days after 120 minutes against Olympiacos and three or four days before the first leg of a Champions League play-off tie against Bodo/Glimt, reported to be in Nijmegen, in a window the competition organiser has published as 18 or 19 August with the exact date still to be confirmed. The second leg follows on 25 or 26 August. There is a competing pull in the other direction: N.E.C. lost their league opener at home, so this is also their first chance to respond in the Eredivisie. No Rotation Prediction Follows From Any Of This, and none is made — no source states that N.E.C. will rotate, and the constraint described here is two-sided rather than one-sided.Moderate confidence

• Playing eligibilityReported but unconfirmedPartially Resolved By Competitive Participation. Six of the eight 2026 summer arrivals have since played competitive football for N.E.C. and are therefore established as eligible for the matches they played: Dusan Tadic, Emre Mor, Clement Bischoff and Jamiro Monteiro all appeared in the Eredivisie opener on 8 August, Kaj Sierhuis came on in it and scored, and Tobias Storm played both Champions League legs against Olympiacos and was named on the Eredivisie bench for the opener. That settles matchday eligibility and nothing else — no transfer term, fee, contract length or fitness statement is affected, and no general registration compliance claim follows from it. Still Unresolved, exactly as before: Perr Schuurs, who has appeared in no competitive fixture this season and is separately unavailable through injury; and Adam Tahaui, who was named on the Eredivisie bench on 8 August but has not been used in any match, so squad inclusion rather than participation is all that is established for him. Separately, and Scoped Only To UEFA Competition, not The Eredivisie: the squad-list quota finding recorded on earlier versions of this card stands, with Koki Ogawa, Vito van Crooij and Tahaui outside the European list. That UEFA-scoped Finding Must Not Be Read As Eredivisie Unavailability For Any Of Those Players — the single most important honesty point this card carries, and it survives this reconciliation unchanged.
• InjuriesConfirmed issueTwo starters were forced off inside the first 33 minutes of the 11 August Champions League second leg. Philippe Sandler is expected to be absent for a matter of weeks on the head coach's own post-match estimate, which is explicitly hedged and is not a published diagnosis. Sami Ouaissa has no timeline at all, and the reports disagree on whether the problem is muscular or the ankle that troubled him in pre-season — his availability is open rather than doubtful, and is neither ruled out nor assumed. Perr Schuurs remains unavailable to roughly mid-September. Two earlier doubts resolved by participation instead: Bram Nuytinck was used late in the same match, and Darko Nejasmic completed 120 minutes after taking the ankle challenge that got an opponent sent off, with no treatment reported — the latter is carried as a watch item, not as a clean bill of health. Thomas Ouwejan and Yassin Moslih have no new evidence in either direction since the previous cutoff and remain unresolved. No Severity Or Return Date Is Estimated For Anyone, and no club injury bulletin has been published for the 15 August fixture.
• Squad and transfer statusConfirmed issueEight arrivals, five with an opened official club release; fourteen departures, four confirmed together at official-primary level plus a fifth (Proper) confirmed separately. Resolved Since The Previous Cutoff: the record outbound transfer is complete — PSV announced Kodai Sano officially and presented him on 8 August 2026, on a contract to mid-2031, and he has appeared in no N.E.C. squad since — so this card no longer treats him as a possible N.E.C. player. A goalkeeper, Nikolas Polster, has since been presented, which answers the recruitment half of this card's goalkeeping question without establishing any hierarchy behind Gonzalo Crettaz. Still Open, unchanged: a permanent centre-back signing (Kaplan) collapsed on 28 July and Kaplan is not modelled as N.E.C. depth anywhere in this card; a loan move for a Porto centre back is reported as agreed but is unconfirmed at club level, unregistered, and is not counted as available cover; no captain is established; no transfer fee is club-disclosed for any 2026 deal; several departure destinations (Cillessen, and the mechanisms for Nieuwenhuijs, Gonzalez, Danilo and Darelas) remain unresolved; and the transfer window remains open to 2 September, with the club publicly seeking further defensive reinforcement.

What we still do not know

This profile records 27 points that available sources did not settle. The questions below are the ones that most affect how N.E.C. Nijmegen are read; the rest are held open rather than filled in with assumptions.

• Why is Koki Ogawa outside N.E.C.'s UEFA squad list — a registration-quota/selection judgement, or an undisclosed injury?

  The two explanations imply materially different availability pictures for the rest of the season: a selection judgement says nothing about his Eredivisie fitness, while an injury (if real) could affect the Telstar fixture too. Neither is currently established at registry standard.

• Does any N.E.C. player carry a card-accumulation or disciplinary suspension risk into matchweek 1, given that the provider sidelined pull returned zero caution/suspension-category rows and no sidelinedHistory array at all?

  This is an absence of provider coverage, not a confirmed clean position, and per PRE_FREEZE_CHECK_TEMPLATE.md's default posture, no reliable Cards source having been checked at all would make a frozen match analysis blocked rather than ready With Gaps — a documented human decision, not something this TeamCard-authoring task itself resolves.

• Will Philippe Sandler and Sami Ouaissa be available for the away fixture at Willem II on 15 August 2026, and does the reported loan move for a Porto centre back complete and register in time to provide defensive cover?

  Both were forced off inside 33 minutes of the 11 August Champions League second leg, four days before this fixture. The head coach expects to be without Sandler for a matter of weeks but has published no diagnosis; Ouaissa has no timeline at all and the reports do not agree on what the injury is. N.E.C. have started all three competitive matches of the season with a back three, which requires three central defenders, and Perr Schuurs is separately unavailable to roughly mid-September — so this is the difference between a settled defensive selection and an improvised one.

How current this is

Last updated: 12 August 2026 · After Matchweek 1. Drawn from 42 sources. Overall: limited confidence.

Matches

• N.E.C. Nijmegen v Telstar — Sat 8 Aug, 16:30 CEST · Matchweek 1 · Played · Read the analysis
• Willem II v N.E.C. Nijmegen — Sat 15 Aug, 16:30 CEST · Matchweek 2 · Read the analysis
• N.E.C. Nijmegen v Excelsior Rotterdam — not currently scheduled · Matchweek 3