FC Utrecht 1-4 Spakenburg: Spakenburg’s cup upset has unleashed a big party among the players and supporters of the Tweede Divisionist. Spakenburg caused a massive upset on Tuesday by winning no less than 1-4 against FC Utrecht and thus reached the semi-finals of the KNVB cup tournament as the third amateur club ever.
Trainer Chris de Graaf was already confident in advance and thought that his team could provide another upset after the elimination of FC Groningen in the second round. Attacker Floris van der Linden was a bit more nuanced. “I’m always someone with a bit of realism, but I came here thinking that something was possible. Otherwise I might as well have stayed home. But if you had said this in advance, stop it, stop it, no one will believe that,” he told ESPN.
Trainer De Graaf even wanted to grab Utrecht by the throat. “He talked about doing that for twenty minutes. I thought, let’s start at five, haha. We came out well under the pressure, but of course that didn’t work the whole game. We created good chances. That may have been more difficult for Utrecht, but you can expect more from this Utrecht,” said the exuberant manager.
In the final phase, the pipe was empty on the Spakenburg side. “Well, my hamstrings and my calves… Everything filled up,” Van der Linden said. “And I wasn’t alone. But I have to say that I was still surprised how big the difference was. What time will it be tonight? Last time I was home at four o’clock, that will be later now. I don’t think I’m going to work tomorrow.”
Toornstra admits his side were second best
Wimilio Vink opened the score on behalf of Spakenburg and played the joker after the game. He said, “We already told each other beforehand that we are not here on a school trip. Of course it is nice to play here, but we come here to win. I think we deserved that very much. On to the semi-finals. I have already booked the tickets for the Europa League.”
Toornstra did not want to speak of a flattering score: “We deserved to lose. It’s bizarre, really bizarre. I have no words for how this turned out. We owe this to ourselves, we didn’t play as a team. We were simply outplayed in the first ten minutes. After that we took the upper hand and we had some chances, but we just didn’t play well enough.”
Was this one of the most bizarre defeats of his career? This one is in the top three. “Losing 4-1 at home in the quarterfinals of the cup tournament against an amateur team, that is really not possible. With all due respect, because they did a very good job,” responded Toornstra, who thought it was bad enough that Spakenburg had come up with such good opportunities in De Galgenwaard. “Chapeau to Spakenburg, but this has hit us hard. You were in an excellent position beforehand to reach the semi-finals. I think when we’re in bed tonight, we’re going to grind,” he concluded.
