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Customer Story·NEC Nijmegen

Inside NEC's 2025/26 season

Highest ever Eredivisie finish (3rd) & first ever Champions League qualification. So how did they do this?

NEC Nijmegen5 min read

HISTORIC SEASON

Making your game model measurable

From the outside, N.E.C. Nijmegen's season looks like a surprise. The numbers that defined their year are not the ones sitting next to xG and possession. They are the club's own principles, coached every week and measured match after match.

At MyGamePlan, we take the principles of a coach and make them trackable, week by week, with the video behind every number. So a season like NEC's stops looking like a surprise and starts looking like a plan. The clubs that climb the table are rarely the lucky ones. They are the ones who decided exactly what they wanted to be, and then measured whether it was true.

Person using a laptop displaying a sports analytics dashboard with player stats, charts, and a soccer field graphic.

8th → 3rd

24/25 → 25/26 · +5 places · +16 PTS

2024 / 25

  1. 1PSVPSV79 pts
  2. 2AjaxAjax78 pts
  3. 3FeyenoordFeyenoord68 pts
  4. 4FC UtrechtFC Utrecht64 pts
  5. 8NECNEC43 pts

2025 / 26

  1. 1PSVPSV84 pts
  2. 2FeyenoordFeyenoord65 pts
  3. 3NECNEC59 pts
  4. 4FC TwenteFC Twente58 pts
  5. 5AjaxAjax56 pts
  6. 6FC UtrechtFC Utrecht53 pts

STANDOUT SEASON

They press high & infiltrate in numbers

01

Best at winning 2nd balls

Won the most second balls in the entire league. Their press was structured and co-ordinated to retrieve possession.

02

Best at crosses & box infiltration

Most crosses to the box of any Eredivisie team, with an average of 6 players in the box per cross. That figure is top in the world, not just the league.

03

Best at creating danger from transition

Best transition-to-shot and transition-to-goal ratio in the Eredivisie. When the ball was won, they were able to exploit the opponent.

04

Best at restricting opponent build up

Fewest opponent build-ups reaching final third, and fewest balls reaching the assist zone. Third fewest shots conceded in the whole division.

The analyst's own words

Robin Huntjens
“Having performance data and video in the same environment changes how we work. I can go from the numbers to the clips in seconds, which means the conversations with coaches are faster and more focused on what actually matters to us.”
NEC Nijmegen

Robin Huntjens

Performance & Video Analyst, NEC Nijmegen

Punching above their budget

It's football, not statistics

You will not find "second balls won after a long goal kick" or "players in the box per cross" in the standard metric list. These are the staff's own principles, defined in their own language and tracked, with the video moment behind every one. That is a game model: a clear idea of how to play, coached every week until it becomes who the team is.

If your club has a clear idea of how it wants to play but no clean way to see whether it shows up on the pitch, that is the gap we close. Book a demo with MyGamePlan.

QPR players on his phone before training session at the Championship club

See it on your own matches.

Start on the live platform with your professional email, or talk to us about your club first.