The opening home game of a new season is always a blank canvas. For the fans at the Euroborg in August 2014, it was time to find a new hero. Page 18 of the matchday programme officially launched the new season’s “Essent Speler van het Jaar” (Player of the Year) election with a daunting question: “Who will be the successor to Filip Kostic?”
The Serbian winger had just dazzled the Eredivisie and earned a massive transfer to Germany. But the true weight of expectations is revealed in the small grey box at the bottom of the page, listing the winners since 2009. The lineage is absolutely staggering: Danny Holla, Andreas Granqvist, Dusan Tadic, Maikel Kieftenbeld, Virgil van Dijk, and Filip Kostic.
For a mid-sized Dutch club, producing or developing that caliber of talent in consecutive years is a scouting miracle. For the players stepping onto the pitch against Heracles that afternoon, that list wasn’t just a piece of trivia; it was the standard. The fans texting “SMS GRO” to vote weren’t just looking for a good performance; they were actively searching for the next global superstar to emerge from their ranks.
A Look into the Future
By 2026, looking at that list of names printed in a 2014 programme feels surreal. You are looking at future Champions League winners, Premier League captains, and Europa League champions. The 2014/2015 season did indeed produce worthy successors. Players like Tjaronn Chery and Eric Botteghin would dominate the voting that year, leading the club to KNVB Cup glory. While they might not have reached the Ballon d’Or heights of a Virgil van Dijk, they etched their names into the history of FC Groningen just as deeply, proving they could carry the heavy crown passed down by the legends before them.