Excelsior bring a flawless pre-season record into this Eredivisie opener, having won all 5 of their summer fixtures and scored 16 goals in the process. The most recent of those was a 5-3 victory away to Heracles, part of a run that also included a 3-1 win at NAC Breda and a 2-0 success at Dordrecht. That sequence feeds into a Formatic weighted form score of 8.4 out of 10, rated excellent and built on attacking confidence that has seen them find the net in every outing across the last five matches. Their solitary clean sheet in that stretch came in the 2-0 win over Dordrecht, but conceding 8 goals across the same sample suggests the emphasis has been on outscore rather than shutout. Only 1 of those 5 wins came in competitive action, a 3-2 result away to Sparta Rotterdam back in May, yet the consistency of scorelines and the sheer volume of goals suggest a side arriving in sharp rhythm.

Willem II present a more modest picture, their steady form score of 6.3 out of 10 emerging from a mixed bag of 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat across their last 4 matches. The most recent was a 1-0 home win over KV Mechelen in late July, a low-scoring friendly that followed a 2-2 draw at home to FC Eindhoven and a 1-2 home defeat to Quick Boys. Their only competitive result in that window was a 2-1 away win at FC Volendam in the Eerste Divisie back in May. Across those 4 outings Willem II have scored 6 and conceded 5, finding the net in all 4 but keeping just 1 clean sheet. The 2.1-point gap in weighted form favours the visitors, and the differing trajectories are visible in both goal output and defensive solidity. Where Excelsior have fired in 16 across 5, Willem II have managed 6 across 4, and where the hosts have alternated between low-scoring wins and draws, Excelsior have consistently put up multiple goals even when conceding.

The head to head ledger across the last 10 meetings is locked at 3 wins apiece with 4 draws, and those 10 fixtures have averaged 2.7 goals. Both teams have scored in 7 of 10, and 5 of 10 have cleared 2.5 goals. The most recent itemised clash was a 3-1 home win for Willem II in December 2022, while a 2-0 home victory in July 2021 also favoured the hosts. The other three detailed results include a 1-1 draw at Excelsior in April 2019, a 2-2 draw at Willem II in September 2018, and a 2-1 away win for Excelsior in April 2018. That pattern of shared outcomes and open scorelines tallies with the current profiles, though Excelsior's recent habit of conceding while scoring freely aligns more closely with the both-teams-scoring trend than with any expectation of control.

Excelsior's season sample across 6 matches shows they average 14.2 shots per game, put 5.3 on target, and generate 1.54 expected goals per outing alongside 52.2 percent possession. They keep a clean sheet in 20 percent of games and fail to score in 10 percent, numbers that confirm an attack-minded approach with occasional defensive gaps. Willem II lack equivalent profiling data in this brief, but their recent friendlies suggest a side still calibrating rather than firing on all cylinders. The form gap, the goal difference across summer, and the head to head tendency toward open matches all point to a fixture where Excelsior's momentum and firepower could prove decisive, particularly if the hosts cannot match the tempo set by 5 consecutive wins and 16 goals scored. The contest may hinge on whether Willem II can impose the kind of defensive discipline that held KV Mechelen scoreless or whether Excelsior's attacking rhythm, honed across a perfect pre-season, carries straight into the league campaign.