N.E.C.
Also written as NEC, NEC Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
The club
Nijmegen Eendracht Combinatie, always N.E.C. or NEC, were formed on 15 November 1900 and took their present name in April 1910 when Eendracht merged with NVV Nijmegen. They play at the Goffertstadion, capacity 12,650, a ground built by the unemployed of the city and opened in 1939 by Prince Bernhard. Both Nijmegen clubs initially refused to use it; NEC moved in permanently in 1945 and bought the stadium from the council in 1992 for one guilder. The home kit is green and black. The club's fiercest rivalry is the Gelderse Derby with Vitesse of Arnhem, a fixture framed as a workers' city against an administrative one.
The feed calls them "Nijmegen".
Recent seasons
NEC were promoted back to the Eredivisie through the play-offs in May 2021, beating NAC Breda 2-1 in the final, and 2026-27 is their sixth consecutive season in the top flight. They reached the KNVB Cup final in 2023-24 and lost it.
The 2025-26 season was the best in the club's history. NEC finished third in the Eredivisie with 59 points from 34 matches, 16 wins, 11 draws and 7 defeats, 77 goals scored and 53 conceded, behind PSV and Feyenoord and ahead of Twente and Ajax. Third place was secured on 17 May 2026 with a win over Go Ahead Eagles and it carried a Champions League qualifying place. They also reached the KNVB Cup final again and lost it again.
The 2026-27 Eredivisie began on 8 August 2026. NEC lost their opening match 1-2 at home to the promoted Telstar, conceding in the first minute and on 24 and pulling one back on 82.
Honours and landmarks
NEC have never won a major national trophy. They have lost six KNVB Cup finals, in 1973, 1983, 1994, 2000, 2024 and 2026. They have won the Eerste Divisie twice, in 1974-75 and 2014-15, and the Tweede Divisie once, in 1963-64, and have been promoted from the second tier on five further occasions.
Third place in 2025-26 is the club's highest league finish; 16 wins in a season is also a club record. The record fee received is the sale of goalkeeper Robin Roefs to Sunderland in 2025, described by the club's Dutch record as a transfer record and reported at just over ten million euros. Sije Visser holds the appearance record with 490 and Frans Janssen the scoring record with 133. No record attendance figure and no record fee paid were confirmed from the sources read here.
Notable scorelines
No club record victory or record defeat was confirmed from the sources read here. In Europe, the 2-0 home win over Udinese in December 2008 that sent NEC through to the UEFA Cup knockout round, and the 6-0 win over NAC Breda in May 2008 that secured the European place in the first instance, are the results the club's own history dwells on.
European record
NEC's European history is short. They played in the 1969-70 Intertoto Cup. Their first qualification through the league came on 29 May 2003, when a late Jaromír Šimr goal against RKC Waalwijk secured fifth place; Wisła Kraków ended that UEFA Cup run quickly.
The 2008-09 UEFA Cup is the reference campaign. NEC had been 17th at the winter break in 2007-08, then went 31 matches unbeaten, finished eighth and won the UEFA Cup play-offs against Roda JC, Groningen and NAC Breda. In the first round they beat Dinamo București, 1-0 at home and 0-0 away, to reach the group stage, where they were drawn with Tottenham Hotspur, Udinese, Spartak Moscow and Dinamo Zagreb. They lost to Dinamo Zagreb and Tottenham, won 2-1 at Spartak through Lasse Schöne, and beat Udinese 2-0 at home through Collins John and Jhon van Beukering to go through. Hamburger SV eliminated them in the round of 32, 3-0 in Nijmegen and 1-0 in Hamburg. Franz Beckenbauer publicly praised the travelling support.
The 2026-27 Champions League is the club's first appearance in that competition.
Quotes
- "Soms doet zich een kans voor waarvan je vooraf denkt dat die voor een club als N.E.C. niet haalbaar is." - Carlos Aalbers, N.E.C. technical director, on nec-nijmegen.nl, 27 July 2026. https://www.nec-nijmegen.nl/nieuws/nieuws/dusan-tadic-tekent-voor-twee-seizoenen-bij-n.e.c..htm - "Wij geloven in een goede mix van talent en ervaring en Dusan past daar perfect in." - Carlos Aalbers, N.E.C. technical director, on nec-nijmegen.nl, 27 July 2026. https://www.nec-nijmegen.nl/nieuws/nieuws/dusan-tadic-tekent-voor-twee-seizoenen-bij-n.e.c..htm - "We zijn dan ook ontzettend blij dat hij voor N.E.C. heeft gekozen." - Carlos Aalbers, N.E.C. technical director, on nec-nijmegen.nl, 27 July 2026. https://www.nec-nijmegen.nl/nieuws/nieuws/dusan-tadic-tekent-voor-twee-seizoenen-bij-n.e.c..htm
No quotation from Dick Schreuder or from any player about the Olympiacos tie was confirmed from the sources read here; the club's own reports of 11 August 2026 carry no attributed quotes.
Right now (2026/27)
Dick Schreuder is head coach, Ron van Oijen chairman and Carlos Aalbers technical director. The squad has been rebuilt around experience. Perr Schuurs joined free from Torino on 16 June 2026, Kaj Sierhuis free from Fortuna Sittard on 1 July, Tobias Storm from Lyngby for an undisclosed fee on 1 July, Adam Tahaui from Vitesse for an undisclosed fee on 7 July, Emre Mor free from Fenerbahçe on 20 July, Clement Bischoff on loan from Red Bull Salzburg on 22 July, and Dušan Tadić, unattached, on a two-year deal on 27 July 2026. Out went Ahmetcan Kaplan on a loan return to Ajax, Jasper Cillessen and Jetro Willems at the end of their contracts on 1 July, and Youssef El Kachati to Reims for an undisclosed fee on the same day.
Pre-season was uneven, with defeats to MSV Duisburg, Anderlecht, SV Elversberg and Sevilla against wins over V-Varen Nagasaki and a 7-0 against Al-Fayha. The league campaign opened badly with the 2-1 home defeat by Telstar on 8 August 2026, which left NEC eleventh after matchday one.
Europe has gone the other way. NEC entered the 2026-27 Champions League at the third qualifying round, League Path, and knocked out Olympiacos. The first leg at the Karaiskakis Stadium on 4 August 2026 finished 0-0 in front of 31,134. The return at the Goffertstadion on 11 August finished 2-1 after extra time in front of 11,700: Ayoub El Kaabi put Olympiacos ahead on 46 minutes, Bryan Linssen equalised on 72 and Emre Mor won it in extra time, with Olympiacos reduced to ten men. NEC took the tie 2-1 on aggregate. The attendance was not confirmed from the sources read here.
The play-off pairs them with Bodø/Glimt, who beat Union Saint-Gilloise 6-5 on aggregate. The first leg is at the Goffertstadion on 19 August 2026 at 21:00, the second in Bodø on 25 August. The loser goes into the Europa League league phase.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_Nijmegen https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/N.E.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_NEC_Nijmegen_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Eredivisie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Eredivisie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Champions_League_qualifying https://www.nec-nijmegen.nl/nieuws/nieuws/dusan-tadic-tekent-voor-twee-seizoenen-bij-n.e.c..htm https://www.nec-nijmegen.nl/nieuws/nieuws/n.e.c.-klopt-olympiacos-piraeus-na-verlenging-in-spektakelstuk.htm https://www.nec-nijmegen.nl/nieuws/nieuws/n.e.c.-bereikt-play-offs-uefa-champions-league.htm https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2049105 https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2049115 https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2049214
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.