Excelsior arrive at this Eredivisie fixture in exceptional pre-season form, posting 5 wins from their last 5 outings and scoring 16 goals across that run. Utrecht, by contrast, have managed just 1 win from their last 5, conceding 6 and scoring only 4, with three defeats in that sequence. The form gap between the sides stands at 7.11 out of 10 in Excelsior's favour, making this one of the widest disparities in the opening weekend.

The hosts have found the net in all 5 of their recent matches, albeit with only 1 clean sheet to show from that spell. Their most emphatic display came in a 5-3 win away to Heracles on 24 July, while they also put 3 past NAC Breda and Cambuur in other pre-season outings. That attacking output of 16 goals across 5 fixtures suggests a side comfortable taking risks at both ends, evidenced by the fact they conceded 8 in the same period. Excelsior's most recent competitive result was a 3-2 victory away to Sparta Rotterdam back in May, and they will hope that goalscoring confidence translates into the new campaign.

Utrecht's preparation has been significantly more troubled. They have scored in just 2 of their last 5 matches and failed to find the net in three separate friendlies, including a 0-1 reverse away to Cambuur and a 0-1 home defeat to Apollon Limassol. Their solitary win in that run came at home to V-varen Nagasaki, a 3-2 scoreline that accounted for three-quarters of their total goals across the sample. The visitors registered 1 clean sheet from those 5 outings, a 0-0 draw away to Ajax in their final fixture of the previous competitive season, but have since struggled to assert themselves at either end of the pitch.

The head to head record over the last 10 meetings shows 4 wins for Utrecht, 1 for Excelsior and 5 draws, with an average of 3.2 goals per game. Both teams have scored in 6 of those 10 encounters, and 6 have finished over 2.5 goals, pointing to fixtures that tend to open up. The most recent meeting, however, broke sharply from that trend: Excelsior won 5-0 at home on 26 April 2026, their first victory in the sequence. Before that, Utrecht had prevailed 4-1 in August 2025, and the two sides drew 1-1 and 2-2 in their two meetings across 2023 and early 2024. The sole other itemised result saw Utrecht edge a 1-0 win in January 2023.

Excelsior's perfect pre-season run and Utrecht's inability to score consistently set the tone for a fixture that could see the hosts exploit fragile visiting confidence. With 16 goals in 5 matches behind them and a 5-0 win in this fixture still fresh in the recent record, Excelsior look well placed to start the Eredivisie campaign with another high-scoring performance. Utrecht's single win from 5 and their failure to register in three of those outings suggest they will find it difficult to reverse the pattern when the season begins in earnest.