You know your defence is having an off day when a game looks lost with less than five minutes on the clock. It took Apostolos Vellios fewer than 300 seconds to find the net twice during PEC Zwolle’s 13-0 obliteration of Den Bosch on Friday, opening the scoring almost straight from kick-off with a quite sumptuous chip from outside the penalty area.
A close-range tap-in followed moments later. And the look on Vellios’ face, completing his hat-trick after just 12 minutes with a fearsome strike from distance, told a story.
A look of total disbelief. Vellios had only scored five goals in 20 games before Den Bosch came to town. By the time the final whistle blew in Zwolle, he had taken his tally to nine in 21.
“It was very special tonight,” Vellios beams; now the fastest player ever in Eerste Divisie history to score a hat-trick in under 12 minutes.
He ended the night with four to his name. Zwolle emulating Ajax’s remarkable thrashing of VVV Venlo from October 2020.
“It was great. It was one of the best matches of my career,” Vellios adds (ESPN). “I didn’t know that (I broke a second-tier record). At the end of the day, it’s just three points and it’s an important win. Hopefully we can continue like this.”
Former Everton and Nottingham Forest striker Apostolos Vellios shines
With PEC Zwolle six points clear at the top of the table, both they and Vellios looked destined to be back amongst the Ajaxs, the PSVs, the Feyenoords of the world in 2023/24.
If only Nottingham Forest and Everton – two of his many former clubs – had a centre-forward capable of producing performances like Vellios did on Friday. Forest and Everton are two of the lowest scorers in the Premier League.
But not that everyone had a smile on their face as the goals just kept on coming for Vellios and Zwolle during a stunning evening in Overijssel.
“It felt very uncomfortable,” PEC captain Bram van Polen tells De Stentor, taking pity on his beleaguered opponents. “Everything that could fall in flew in. It just kept going. It is a special evening, but I must say that I would have preferred to divide (the goals) over two, three games. You don’t wish this on anyone.”
After a difficult season, goals hard to come by, you can understand why Vellios might not have been quite so pitying.
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