When analyzing an opponent in a matchday programme, the top scorers list usually highlights a club’s best scouting discoveries or homegrown talents. However, looking at the “TOPSCORERS VITESSE” block on page 13 of the May 2014 edition reveals a very different, highly specific era of Dutch football history.
The list of the most dangerous players arriving at the Euroborg that evening reads like a youth roster for the English Premier League giant, Chelsea. Sitting at the top with 11 goals is the Brazilian playmaker Lucas Piazon. Further down the list, we find the electric Ghanaian winger Christian Atsu with 5 goals, and a young, raw striker named Bertrand Traoré with 3 goals.
During the early 2010s, Vitesse had established a highly controversial but effective partnership with Chelsea, acting as an unofficial proving ground for the London club’s vast army of young, stockpiled talent. For FC Groningen defenders like Eric Botteghin and Johan Kappelhof, this meant they weren’t just facing standard Eredivisie attackers; they were facing elite, highly motivated global prospects desperate to prove they belonged in the Premier League. It added a unique, unpredictable flavor to the playoff tie.
A Look into the Future
The players on this list experienced wildly different fates after their time in Arnhem. Bertrand Traoré fulfilled his potential, eventually starring for Ajax, Aston Villa, and the Burkina Faso national team. Lucas Piazon embarked on a legendary, decade-long sequence of loans across Europe, becoming the ultimate symbol of the Chelsea loan system before finally settling in Portugal and Brazil. Tragically, Christian Atsu, who dazzled the Eredivisie with his pace that season, lost his life in the devastating 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake. This small statistical block remains a poignant snapshot of these young men at the very dawn of their European journeys.