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Football

02nd Feb 2025

“You can’t possibly make this up” – Robin Van Persie left fuming after opposition team play with 12 men

Ryan Price

This is without a doubt one of the most bizarre scenarios you’ll ever see in football.

Heerenveen boss Robin Van Persie was left gobsmacked and outraged after the opposition team in last night’s Dutch Eredivise encounter appeared to play with 12 men, and then scored an equaliser moments after that 12th player had left the pitch.

The Manchester United and Arsenal legend has been manager of Heerenveen since May of last year, and currently has them placed 10th in the Dutch top division.

Last night, his team looked set to secure an important three points at home to 8th placed Fortuna Sittard, when a ridiculous turn of events changed the course of the game.

In the 87th minute, Fortuna substituted numbers 80 & 8, bringing in numbers 30 & 5 in their place.

However, during the substitution process, player number 20 walked towards the bench as if he was being replaced, but instead received instructions from the coach and ran back onto the pitch.

Number 8 for Fortuna Sittard must have thought number 20 was one of the players being substituted out, so stayed on.

This left Fortuna Sittard playing with 12 players for quite a few seconds.

The restart of the game started from Fortuna’s goal kick, and Fortuna – now playing with 12 players – attacked the Heerenveen defence.

They managed to win a throw-in near the Heerenveen goal, which is when the referee realised the imbalance on the playing field and, finally, player number 8 was told to come out.

The match continued with 11 vs 11, but restarted with a throw-in in a good position for Fortuna.

After the throw-in & play on, Fortuna got a corner kick.

They managed to score from that corner to make it 2-2 in the 90th minute, much to Van Persie’s fury.

During a post-match interview, Robin Van Persie again questioned the incident, saying: “You couldn’t possibly make this up!”

According to FIFA, Fortuna Sittard would only have been penalised if the goal was actually scored with a 12th player on the pitch.

Because the 12th player left before the goal was scored, the goal will stand and they won’t be punished.

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time a bizarre incident like this has occurred in a top flight game.

In 2022, Bayern Munich fielded an additional player during the closing stages of their 4-1 win over SC Freiburg at Europa-Park Stadion, after Niklas Sule was brought onto the pitch to replace the already departed Corentin Tolisso before a switch between Kingsley Coman and Marcel Sabitzer could take place.

Around 20 seconds were played before proceedings were brought to a halt, leading to a significant delay towards the closing stages of the match.

Ex-Germany midfielder Dietmar Hamann argued at the time that Bayern should face disciplinary action, but no formal punishment was given.