EXCELSIOR ROTTERDAM - HOME SHIRT 2025/2026
Excelsior Rotterdam are the proud elder statesmen of Rotterdam football, founded on 23 July 1902 and the oldest of the city's three professional clubs. They hail from the leafy Kralingen district in the east of the city, which gives them the nickname de Kralingers, while their famous striped kit makes them de Roodzwarten (the Red-Blacks). Their home, the Van Donge & De Roo Stadion, is known to one and all as Woudestein, and with around 4,500 seats it is the smallest ground in the Eredivisie, an intimate little bowl where every voice counts. One more nickname tells you plenty about the club's roots: de oud-papierclub (the recycling club), after the paper-recycling trade of the owners who kept them going for years. Long overshadowed by their giant neighbours Feyenoord, Excelsior have turned being the underdog into an identity.
The 2025/2026 season was all about Excelsior's homecoming to the Eredivisie, their 25th season in the top flight and their first back after promotion. They had done it the hard way, finishing runners-up in the 2024/2025 Eerste Divisie behind champions FC Volendam to seal an immediate return. Under manager Ruben den Uil, the task was survival, pure and simple, and they pulled it off, finishing 13th in the Eredivisie on 38 points from 10 wins, 8 draws and 16 defeats to keep their status for another campaign. For a club with one of the smallest budgets in the division, staying up was its own reward, and this striking red-and-black home shirt carries the colours they wore through it all, the classic Roodzwarten stripes that have defined the club for well over a century.
Cup glory proved elusive. Excelsior's KNVB Cup adventure ended almost before it began, a 1-0 extra-time defeat in the first round away at lower-league neighbours Excelsior Maassluis, a derby they would have loved to come through. In the league it was a rollercoaster. The opening weekend served up a brutal 5-0 defeat away at NEC Nijmegen, a harsh reminder of the step up in class. But the good days made it all worthwhile, none better than a glorious 5-0 demolition of FC Utrecht at Woudestein, the sort of result that lives long in the memory at a club this size.
Excelsior's standout performer was Noah Naujoks, the attacking midfielder leading the scoring charts with 10 Eredivisie goals, a priceless contribution for a team that had to fight for every point. Sanches Fernandes added six league goals of his own, while summer signing Irakli Yegoian, the Georgian midfielder, chipped in with five. This was a squad rebuilt almost from scratch over the close season, thrown straight in against the best in the country and asked to grow up fast. That they held firm and preserved Excelsior's Eredivisie place, flying the flag for the smaller clubs, was a quietly brilliant effort.
