As the Dutch title fight intensifies, Feyenoord delivered a crushing blow with their second straight defeat.

After their heavy defeat on the road at league leaders PSV on the last gameday , Feyenoord failed to impress yet again with a 1-2 loss at home to third-placed FC Utrecht.

With Brazilian winger Igor Paixao and Juventus target David Hancko both missing chances in the opening half hour, former Feyenoord midfielder Jens Toornstra almost put visitors Utrecht up after 31 minutes, but his effort just sailed over the bar.

Striker Santiago Gimenez saw an effort from close range get denied by goalkeeper Michael Brouwer, after which Hancko failed to score yet another time.

Both the Feyenoord players and faithful called foul play when Gimenez got pulled down in the penalty box, but both referee Bas Nijhuis and video assistant referee Allard Lindhout denied Feyenoord a seventh spot kick of the season – a missed call which would feed even more VAR outrage.

A very present Santiago Gimenez thought he had finally put Feyenoord in front just a couple minutes after the break, but an offside infringement frustrated the Mexican yet again.

FC Utrecht happily profited from Feyenoord’s squandered opportunities and took the lead after an hour of playing thanks to a neat header from Danish Niklas Vesterlund.

The surprising visitors doubled the lead only five minutes later when American international Paxten Aaronson capped off a quick Utrecht counter with an easy finish.

Feyenoord manager Brian Priske brought on another striker in Argentinian Julian Carranza and nearly got rewarded a minute after, but yet another penalty call was denied by Nijhuis and his crew.

Fan favourite Sebastien Haller, who made his heroic return to Utrecht just last week, nearly reopened his Utrecht account with a handy finish but got called back with yet another fatal offside call.

Roughly ten minutes before full-time, Feyenoord finally found a lucky break as Utrecht fullback Sofian El Karouani got a ball ricocheted onto his arm and gifted Feyenoord a penalty. Gimenez demanded the ball and decisively slotted it home for Feyenoord’s first goal of 2025.

It ended up not being enough for a point as Feyenoord dropped points for the third time in the last five league games, dropping valuable points in a weekend where league leaders PSV dropped points against AZ. Now eleven points adrift, only a miracle can help Feyenoord to their seventeenth league title.

Utrecht closed in on league leaders PSV with their win and are now seven points behind the reigning champions.

Twente hit six to start the year

Mere weeks after their tumultuous end to 2024, FC Twente hit their stride early in 2025 with a 6-2 rout over Willem II. Sem Steijn, the Eredivisie’s top goalscorer, struck three times to extend his lead over American Ricardo Pepi and Irish Troy Parrott to five goals.

Steijn opened the first half with a goal from a counter, but Twente couldn’t hold on and conceded fewer than twenty minutes later when Austrian Raffael Behounek struck for Willem II.

The prolific Sem Steijn scored his second just five minutes later but saw his team concede yet again when Patrick Joosten thumped in the equaliser, earning Ringo Meerveld his second assist of the half.

23-year-old Steijn completed his hat-trick just five minutes after the break, converting his third spot kick of the Eredivisie campaign.

Former Norwich striker Ricky van Wolfswinkel then doubled Twente’s lead, after which Michael Sadilek put the nail in the coffin in the 79th minute. Carel Eiting scored Twente’s third and final goal in injury time.

Elsewhere, FC Groningen and Almere City kept each other in balance in a 0-0 stalemate in the North of the Netherlands.

Robin van Persie led his sc Heerenveen side to a commanding 2-4 win away at NAC Breda, narrowing the gap to the top 8 to just one point. Jakob Trenskow, Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Nikolai Hopland, and Ilias Sebaoui scored for Heerenveen, Elias Mar Omarsson struck twice for the struggling home side.