However, Sparta still has the ‘make-up game’ of six minutes against Vitesse on Tuesday, where the Rotterdam team defend a 1-0 lead. The game was stopped at that position at the beginning of March, after Vitesse supporters threw rubbish on the field. Sparta then did not want to finish the game, officially because safety could not be guaranteed, but trainer Fraser acknowledged that it also played a part, that his team no longer had the right concentration and focus to bring the game to a successful conclusion. If Sparta manages to get through the six minutes in Arnhem after the slip in Limburg, the team from Rotterdam will come to 25 points, which is still one point less than Fortuna.
Sparta had left nothing to chance in the run-up to the relegation cracker and had left for Limburger the day before to prepare for the important game in a hotel.
Early lead
Compared to the duel in the Johan Cruijff ArenA, where Sparta suffered a narrow 2-1 defeat against Ajax, Fraser had not made any base places for Vito van Crooy, who was not completely fit, and Laurent Jans. Lennart Thy and Younes Namli did appear at the kick-off in Sittard.
With more than 10,000 supporters, who made themselves heard, the Fortuna Sittard Stadium was well filled. The event was completely sold out. Propelled by the home crowd, Fortuna started the game with a lot of energy and within 10 minutes the home team took the lead. Mats Seuntjens curled a free kick around the Sparta wall into Maduka Okoye’s goal, who seemed completely surprised that the free kick had already been taken and did not react at all. Immediately after the deficit, Mario Engels had to be replaced by Adrian Dalmau at Sparta.
Fortuna was the dominant party in the first half and played more easily than Sparta. Compared to the 1-1 draw in the Galgenwaard, trainer Sjors Ultee had adjusted his team in three positions. Ben Rienstra and George Cox were absent due to injury and were replaced by Tesfaldet Tekie and Ivo Pinto, while Charlison Benschop had to make way for Paul Gladon in the striker position.
Agony Sparta
Gladon proved his worth by entering the 2-0 after good preparatory work by Zian Flemming ten minutes before half time. Sparta could do little in return. The first big chance for the Spartans seemed to yield the connecting goal just before half-time, but Bart Vriends’ header goal was rejected by referee Serdar Gözübüyük after intervention by VAR Pol van Boekel, because the scorer had pulled a shirt off guard Seuntjens. It was not taken into account that in the first instance Seuntjens also grabbed Friend’s shirt.
Without a connecting goal, but with Vito van Crooy and Laurent Jans, Sparta went on the hunt for a goal after the break. That did not yield much. The accuracy in the game was hard to find in the Fortuna defense, together with SC Cambuur the most passed defense in the Eredivisie this season, it simply kept dry. Sparta’s resistance was finally broken when Gladon, the ex-Spartan employed by Fortuna, headed in the 3-0 in the 77th minute from a corner kick by Seuntjens. On behalf of Sparta, Lennart Thy was still close to scoring an honorary goal, but the well-keeping Yanick van Osch prevented it. The final chord was for Flemming who saw a header end up on the crossbar.
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