To read the away manager’s column in the February 2014 matchday programme is to step into a completely different era of Dutch football hierarchy. Page 6 features FC Twente manager Michel Jansen, who brought his team to the Euroborg not as a mid-table challenger, but as an absolute powerhouse sitting in second place, breathing down the necks of league leaders Ajax.

Jansen’s column exudes the confidence of a top-tier club. He notes that Twente had only lost three times all season and was desperate to secure European football after missing out the previous year for the first time in seven seasons. “We are obligated to our standing to achieve European football this year,” he states matter-of-factly. He also reflects on the reverse fixture earlier in the season, where Twente effortlessly dismantled FC Groningen 5-0.

However, Jansen is respectful of the transformation Groningen had undergone since that autumn thrashing. “In the further course of the season, it has become clear that the 5-0 was an incident. The team is stable and is rightly in the sub-top of the ranking,” he observes. He concludes by hoping for an entertaining match with “many goals.” It is a fascinating snapshot of a manager balancing the arrogance of a title contender with the necessary respect for a difficult away ground.

A Look into the Future

Reading Michel Jansen’s confident words about FC Twente’s “standing” and European ambitions carries a heavy, tragic irony when viewed from the future. In 2014, Twente was a giant. But shortly after this season, the club was engulfed in a catastrophic financial and administrative scandal that nearly wiped them off the map. Points deductions, bans from European football, and eventual relegation to the Eerste Divisie in 2018 completely shattered the powerhouse status they flaunted in this column. While Twente eventually climbed their way back to the top half of the Eredivisie in the 2020s, this 2014 matchday programme captures them at the very edge of the precipice, right before the empire collapsed.