Nobody really saw this coming. That is not meant as an insult to NEC Nijmegen they have been one of the most entertaining sides in Dutch football for much of the 2025/26 campaign but when you are drawing PSV Eindhoven in a cup semi-final at home, and PSV are sitting 17 points clear at the top of the Eredivisie with a domestic treble still on the table, the honest expectation from most people following the KNVB Beker is that the Eindhoven side books their final ticket without too much drama. Tuesday night at De Goffert had other ideas. NEC won 3-2 in a match that swung from end to end, that had everything a knockout tie should have, and that ended with PSV’s cup dreams for this season firmly over. NEC Nijmegen are going to the final on April 19th, and they are going there having beaten the best team in the country to get there.
The context around this fixture is worth understanding before getting into the goals, because the gap between where these two clubs stand in Dutch football made this one of the more lopsided semi-finals on paper in recent KNVB Beker history. PSV, under Peter Bosz, had already claimed the Johan Cruyff Shield earlier in the season and appeared destined to win a third consecutive Eredivisie title. They came into Tuesday’s tie having beaten Heracles 3-1 at the weekend, full of confidence, needing only this cup run and a few more league results to complete what would be a remarkable domestic treble. The last team to beat them in a meaningful competitive fixture had done so quite some time ago. NEC, fourth in the Eredivisie with one eye on European qualification, had been winless in four matches heading into Tuesday — defeats to Utrecht and Fortuna Sittard, draws with Sparta Rotterdam and Ajax. Not the form of a side about to beat the Eredivisie champions.
But form can be a misleading thing in cup football, and what NEC showed on Tuesday was not about their recent league results. It was about their identity. Dick Schreuder’s side play with intensity and directness that makes them genuinely difficult to manage at De Goffert, and the fact that PSV had conceded three goals in each of their last three visits to Nijmegen was not a statistic anyone had forgotten. NEC thrive on transition football, on getting the ball wide quickly and getting runners in behind at pace. When it works, it is extremely difficult to contain. On Tuesday night, it worked from the very first minute.
Six minutes in, Bryan Linssen put NEC ahead. It came from almost nothing — a transition that Linssen read instinctively, a ball played into space, and a finish that went low and hard into the corner past Matej Kovar. De Goffert erupted. Linssen, who had been carrying the attacking burden for NEC in the absence of other options, had timed his run into the game perfectly. There is something about veterans in cup football — the calm they bring to moments that would unsettle younger players — and Linssen’s goal carried that quiet authority. PSV, stung by conceding so early, pushed back immediately.
Ten minutes later Ismael Saibari made it 1-1. Ivan Perisic, PSV’s experienced Croatian wide player, delivered a curling cross from the left side of the area and Saibari attacked the ball aggressively, his header finding the net from close range on the right side of the six-yard box. It was a clinical response from PSV and a reminder that for all NEC’s energy, Bosz had brought a squad to Nijmegen that was more than capable of dealing with the challenge. Saibari had been one of PSV’s more effective midfield contributors throughout the season, and his ability to arrive late into the penalty area and connect with crosses like that one is exactly the quality that had helped PSV dominate the Eredivisie all campaign.
Four minutes after that, Dennis Man made it 2-1 to PSV. The Romanian winger, whose pace and directness had been giving NEC’s left side real problems in those opening exchanges, picked up the ball in a dangerous area and drove a shot past Jasper Cillessen from an angle that looked tight but was clearly not tight enough to prevent the goal. PSV were now ahead, NEC had been pegged back twice in rapid succession after their excellent opening, and De Goffert had gone from a cauldron of noise to something considerably more anxious in the space of 14 minutes. Halftime arrived with PSV 2-1 up, the better side in the last 20 minutes of the half, and apparently well on course for the final.
Then came Eli Dasa. The Israeli right-back, who had been active throughout but not always in attacking positions, drove forward in the 37th minute — before halftime, before the interval reset could give PSV breathing space — and buried a shot past Kovar to level the tie at 2-2. The timing of that goal was everything. Had NEC gone in two goals behind at the break, the psychology of the tie would have shifted almost irreversibly. Instead, 2-2 at halftime meant the match was completely open, and the crowd inside De Goffert had the energy of a support that genuinely believed they were about to witness something special.
The second half continued at that extraordinary pace. Both sides created chances, both goalkeepers made important saves, and the match had that relentless end-to-end quality that makes the best cup ties so memorable. Cillessen, the former Netherlands international who has had an excellent season for NEC, produced a crucial save from a Joey Veerman effort from range in the second half that was the kind of stop that wins matches. Veerman’s shot was struck with real technique and real venom, and Cillessen’s reaction was sharp enough to turn it aside when lesser goalkeepers would have been beaten. That save, in hindsight, was the moment the match turned in NEC’s favour.
Then, just past the hour mark, Basar Önal scored what turned out to be the winner. Noé Lebreton, on NEC’s left side, delivered a cross that Önal met with composure and guided home. It was not a spectacular goal — more a composed, intelligent finish from a player who had made exactly the right run to meet exactly the right delivery — but it completely changed the feel of the match. NEC were ahead again, 3-2, and now they had to hold it.
The final half-hour was, as you might expect, uncomfortable. PSV have enough quality in their squad to cause problems for any team in Holland, and Ricardo Pepi and Kilian Sildillia were brought on to add fresh impetus. NEC defended with real organisation and real determination, though there was a moment where referee Serdar Gözübüyük chose to book Wanner for stopping Thom Chery’s clear run on goal rather than sending him off, a decision that angered the home crowd considerably but ultimately did not change the outcome. There was also a moment when PSV claimed a penalty after contact between Obispo and Linssen inside the area, but Gözübüyük waved it away. PSV were aggrieved; Schreuder’s staff were relieved. In the closing minutes of added time, Perisic had the last meaningful chance for the visitors, his effort narrowly missing the target. That near-miss was the final act of the contest.
When the final whistle blew, De Goffert celebrated like the title had been won rather than a semi-final. And in a way you understood it — NEC had just beaten the best team in the Netherlands, beaten them in a five-goal thriller, beaten them in a cup semi-final where the prize is a first major trophy since 2015. For anyone who has followed Dutch football this season, it is one of the standout results of the year.
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From a statistical standpoint, what makes this result even more striking is the head-to-head record between these clubs. Going into Tuesday, PSV had won 36 of the 45 competitive meetings between the two sides, with NEC winning just three and six drawn. The average goals in those meetings sat at 3.47 per game, which at least predicted the entertainment even if nobody quite predicted the outcome. NEC’s win was only their fourth in the all-time series. It was also, without question, the most significant — a cup semi-final against a side chasing a treble, played at home in front of a crowd that delivered every ounce of support the team needed in the moments it mattered.
For PSV, the cup exit is painful in ways that another trophy might have masked. The Eredivisie title is effectively secured — 17 points clear with nine games to play tells its own story — and the Johan Cruyff Shield sits in the cabinet from earlier in the season. But the prospect of a treble is gone, ended by an NEC side that had the courage and the quality to make the most of their own pitch and their own identity when the biggest occasion of their season arrived. Bosz will be frustrated, his squad will be disappointed, and the defeat will sting until the league trophy is presented. After that, perhaps, the memory will fade. For NEC, it will not fade for quite some time.
NEC now face the winner of the other semi-final — either AZ Alkmaar or Telstar — in the April 19 final. Having seen off PSV, they go into that occasion as a side who have proven they can handle pressure, handle a crowd’s expectation, and come from behind in a knockout tie against elite opposition. Whatever happens at the final, Tuesday night at De Goffert was already worth remembering on its own.
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