Nany Dimata lives again in Nijmegen: “I didn’t expect the goal to be scored”

Already a scorer in the last match before the World Cup break, Dimata returned from vacation by snatching the split point against Ajax (1-1). Then against Emmen on Saturday, he managed to shelter the NEC from the half hour mark by scoring twice. His first since May 2021. The opener came from the penalty spot, and the second goal after a face-to-face with the opposing goalkeeper.

”I did not expect the goal to be scored”, smiled at ForzaNEC, the former Mauve who had initially seen this second goal disallowed by the referee, before the intervention of the VAR. “Actually, I was already waiting for another scoring opportunity. But when I saw that it took so long, I said to myself: ‘so it must be goal’. When the referee finally whistled, I was very happy.”

Landry Dimata smiles again, 508 days later

Small peculiarity: each of his five goals was scored at home, at Goffertstadion. “I must say we are lucky to have this kind of fansadmits the player who works a lot on emotion. When things are going well, but also when things are going badly, we feel that they are with us. It’s a great feeling to play for them.”

Holder almost every game at the forefront of Rogier Meijer’s 4-3-3, Landry Dimata already has more than 1,000 minutes in his legs at mid-season. That’s almost double his last campaign in La Liga, where his coach Vicente Moreno no longer really counted on him. He received an exit voucher last summer to go and get playing time in the Netherlands.

Since then, his morale has increased, at the same rate as his confidence in front of goal and the results of his club, which moved into the top 10 (9th). “We want to show a beautiful side of ourselves: a team that is not afraidse motive Dimata. We want to score, but also defend well. This is our strength and we want to show our qualities, no matter who the opponent is, be it Ajax, PSV or Feyenoord.”

And that’s good, the next opponent of Dimata and the NEC (this Wednesday) is none other than Feyenoord, the current leader of Eredivisie. This will be a new big test for the player trained partly in Standard.