NEC Nijmegen’s Key Figures Ahead of Juventus Europa League Opener

Juventus will begin their Europa League campaign against a club that arrives from a very different football landscape, yet NEC Nijmegen bring a history, a coach and a group of players with enough European memory to make their visit to the Allianz Stadium more than a routine opening-night fixture. The sides have never met before, and the Dutch club’s first continental match will take them far from the wooded surroundings of their usual home.

Juventus v NEC Nijmegen: a new European meeting in Turin

The coach and the club

NEC normally play at the 12,500-capacity Goffertstadion, reached through woodland on the edge of Nijmegen. The journey to the ground passes the club’s training pitches, with no real separation between the everyday work of the squad and the route taken by supporters.

Nijmegen, close to the German border and regarded as the Netherlands’ oldest city, has found a wider football profile under Dick Schreuder. The former PSV Eindhoven player made 92 Eredivisie appearances during his playing career, then built his coaching path across Europe and the United States, including periods working as a match analyst.

Schreuder did not secure a major head-coaching role until after the age of 50. At PEC Zwolle, he led the club to promotion from the Dutch second tier in 2022-23, finishing second after a campaign in which his side scored 99 goals. A move to Castellon followed, and he achieved another promotion in Spain, taking the club into the second division.

Since joining NEC in 2025, Schreuder has taken the team into the Europa League in a qualification that was both historic and unexpected. His side have unsettled established Dutch opponents including Twente, Ajax and AZ Alkmaar through an attacking approach built on high pressure and a willingness to commit players forward. For long stretches last season, NEC were widely regarded as one of the most entertaining teams in the Eredivisie.

Coaching runs in the Schreuder family. Dick’s brother Alfred has recently left the Germany national-team staff, while another brother, Bart, is in charge of Den Bosch.

A dressing room with Italian memories

NEC’s group contains several players whose careers have crossed paths with Italian football. Perr Schuurs, once one of Ajax’s most promising defenders and later a standout performer at Torino, has only recently returned after more than three years away because of serious knee problems.

Still only 26, Schuurs marked his comeback with a goal against PEC Zwolle just three minutes after coming on. He has since added further appearances, though he has not yet started a match. His return gives NEC another figure familiar to Serie A supporters, and a player beginning a new phase after an unusually long absence.

Bram Nuytinck is another former Serie A defender in Schreuder’s squad. Now 36, he spent six years at Udinese between 2017 and 2023 and wore the captain’s armband on several occasions. He also had a six-month spell at Sampdoria before returning to the Netherlands.

There is a different kind of second chance in the story of Emre Mor. Born in Denmark to a Turkish family, the attacking wide player was once labelled the “Turkish Messi” because of his low centre of gravity, close dribbling and eye for goal. Borussia Dortmund paid almost €10 million to sign him from Nordsjaelland in 2016, when he was still a teenager.

Mor did not establish himself in Germany, although Celta Vigo bought him after only one season for a slightly higher fee. His career then took him through clubs in Greece and, particularly, Turkey, without a league season of more than 2,000 minutes. He joined NEC in July as a free agent following his departure from Fenerbahce. At 29, the promise remains part of his game, but the old comparisons belong to a much earlier stage of his career.

Men who have seen Juventus before

Two experienced NEC players can offer the Dutch dressing room a reminder that Juventus have been beaten on European nights before.

• Dusan Tadic spent five years at Ajax and was part of the side that eliminated Cristiano Ronaldo’s Juventus, coached by Massimiliano Allegri, in the 2019 Champions League quarter-finals.

• NEC captain Tjaronn Chery, now 38 and representing Suriname, started for Maccabi Haifa when they defeated Allegri’s Juventus 2-0 in the 2022 Champions League group stage. It was one of Juventus’ bleakest European evenings, prompting then-president Andrea Agnelli to say he felt “ashamed”.

Neither memory decides what will happen in Turin, but both give NEC players direct experience of occasions when Juventus entered a European match as favourites and left without the result they expected.

Sandler’s long route home

Philippe Sandler has become another important part of Schreuder’s side. The 29-year-old defender is regularly central to NEC’s back line, valued for his personality, use of the ball and reading of the game.

His route to Nijmegen did not follow the trajectory once predicted for him. Sandler left Ajax’s academy before turning 20 and quickly impressed during two years with PEC Zwolle. Manchester City signed him for €2.5 million, bringing him into a squad where competition for places was immense.

Injuries and a series of loan spells prevented him from settling in England. Pep Guardiola used him only twice, once in the FA Cup and once in the Carabao Cup. After leaving City, Sandler had a limited season at Feyenoord before joining NEC in 2022. Nijmegen has offered him the stability that had been missing from much of his earlier career.

For Juventus, the opening Europa League round presents an unfamiliar opponent. For NEC, the Allianz Stadium is the next stage in a season shaped by Schreuder’s rise, a bold qualification campaign and a squad carrying the marks of football lives lived across Italy, Spain, Germany, England and beyond.