Go Ahead Eagles Draw with Groningen After Late Miss
Go Ahead Eagles left to rue late miss as Groningen escape De Adelaarshorst with a point
The floodlights were still buzzing and the stands still growling when the final whistle went in Deventer. Go Ahead Eagles had done the hard part. They had chased, pressed, finally broken FC Groningen’s resistance. And then, with the game there to be won, they somehow let it slip.
It ended 1-1. It felt like much less for the home side.
Groningen strike first against the run of play
From the start, Go Ahead Eagles pushed up and pinned Groningen back. Joseph Oosting’s team saw more of the ball, moved it quicker, and carried more threat.
Then Groningen landed the first punch.
Almost out of nowhere, Brynjólfur Willumsson found space on the edge of the box. He didn’t hesitate. One fierce swing of his right foot, the ball fizzed past Kjetil Haug and ripped into the net: 0-1. A stunning strike, and harsh on a home side that had been on the front foot.
The goal changed the mood but not the pattern. Groningen dropped deeper, lines tightening around their own penalty area. Go Ahead had to chase.
Tengstedt turns up the pressure
Søren Tengstedt looked like the man most likely to drag Go Ahead back into it. The striker drifted between the lines, kept asking for the ball, kept running at a tiring defence.
He thought he had his moment with a clever lob, reading Etienne Vaessen’s positioning perfectly and lifting the ball over him. The home fans were already half celebrating when Vaessen twisted back and clawed it away with a superb save.
That summed up the first half: Go Ahead probing and pushing, Groningen clinging on and grateful to their goalkeeper.
After the break, the tempo rose again. Oosting’s side stepped on the gas. Chances came.
Thibo Baeten found room, Stefan Ingi Sigurdarson had sights of goal, and the pressure built in waves. Groningen, legs heavy, still refused to crack. Blocks, clearances, time bought wherever they could find it.
Tengstedt delivers, as expected
The resistance finally broke in the 82nd minute.
Go Ahead sliced through the middle with their best move of the night, quick combinations dragging green shirts out of position. The ball fell to Tengstedt, exactly where Groningen did not want it.
No hesitation. He hammered it past Vaessen: 1-1.
De Adelaarshorst erupted. It was Tengstedt’s fifth goal of the season, enough to make him the Eredivisie’s current top scorer. On this evidence, that is no accident. He played like a striker in form, and he got the reward he had been chasing all evening.
At that point, a draw would have been logical. Go Ahead had their equaliser, Groningen had given everything just to stay in the game.
But the home side smelled blood.
Sigurdarson’s miss that stunned the stadium
Go Ahead didn’t settle. They surged forward again, the crowd dragging them on. Groningen’s legs were gone; their shape frayed. A winner felt inevitable.
It almost arrived through Sigurdarson.
The chance could hardly have been clearer. The ball rolled across to him, the goal gaping, 2-1 waiting on his right boot. One clean contact and the comeback was complete.
He slid it wide.
For a split second, the stadium froze. Then came the groans, the disbelief. Sigurdarson, hands to his head, knew exactly what he had done. That was the moment, and it had gone.
A point each, very different feelings
The final whistle confirmed what that miss had already decided: both teams would have to live with a point.
For Groningen, it was survival. They had taken the lead against the run of play, defended for long stretches, and left with something to show for it. They had no more to give.
For Go Ahead Eagles, it was frustration. They had dominated large parts of the game, seen their in-form striker haul them level, then watched a golden chance to win it slide the wrong side of the post.
On nights like this, one question lingers: will they look back at Sigurdarson’s miss as just one painful moment, or as a turning point in a season that should promise much more?
