page_title: FC Groningen
section_title: New successes in a new stadium (2006–2015)
hierarchical_section_title: FC Groningen / History / New successes in a new stadium (2006–2015)
caption_attribution_description: Euroborg fire FC Groningen - Ajax
context_page_description: Football Club Groningen is a Dutch professional association football club based in the city of Groningen, Groningen province. The club competes in the Eredivisie, the highest football league of the Netherlands.
  The club was founded on 16 June 1971. Its first home stadium was the Stadion Oosterpark. Since 2005, the club has played at the Euroborg.
  Groningen's best result in the Eredivisie was third place in 1991 and 2006, and their worst result was relegation to the Eerste Divisie in 1974 and 1998. The team won the KNVB Cup in the 2014–15 season.
context_section_description: Halfway through the 2005–06 season, FC Groningen moved from the Oosterpark stadium, which facilities had become outdated, to the modern Euroborg. The move took place during the club's best season in years. The attractive style of play by Ron Jans' team in the atmospheric new Euroborg provided the club with a new positive image in the Dutch media. FC Groningen remained unbeaten in its first 15 league matches in the Euroborg, and qualified for the UEFA Cup in both 2006 and 2007. Average attendance increased from about 12,000 in the Oosterpark to around 20,000 in the new stadium. The increase in revenue resulting from the move to the Euroborg allowed FC Groningen to once again became a regular in the top half of the Eredivisie. In the 2006–07 season, FC Groningen's most eye-catching player was youngster Luis Suárez, who made his debut in European football at FC Groningen, but moved to Ajax after just one season in the Euroborg. Among other prominent FC Groningen players in the first Euroborg years were Bruno Silva, Marcus Berg, Tim Matavž, and Andreas Granqvist.
  On 13 April 2008, a fire broke out in the north stand of the Euroborg when thousands rolls of toilet paper, that were thrown from the stand in a tifo choreography ahead of the match between FC Groningen and Ajax, caught fire, leaving 28 people injured. The match was postponed and replayed three days later.
  At the end of the 2009–10 season, Ron Jans, who with eight years in charge had been the longest-serving head coach in FC Groningen's history, left the club to become head coach of rival SC Heerenveen. Former FC Groningen player Pieter Huistra was signed as his successor. Huistra set a new club record for gaining the most points in the first half of a season, when halfway through the 2010–11 season, FC Groningen sat 3rd in the table with 39 points. After an eventual 5th-place finish, FC Groningen qualified for the European competition play-offs. In the play-offs final, FC Groningen seemed on its way to complete a dramatic comeback, when a 5–1 defeat away to ADO Den Haag was followed by a 5–1 victory in the return leg in the Euroborg, but ADO Den Haag prevailed in the penalty shoot-out. Huistra was sacked after a very poor second half of the 2011–12 season, in which FC Groningen finished 14th, falling out of the top half of the Eredivisie for the first time since moving to the Euroborg in 2006. After one season under Robert Maaskant, former assistant manager Erwin van de Looi was appointed as the new FC Groningen head coach. Like Maaskant the year before him, Van de Looi led the team to a 7th-place finish and qualification for the European competition play-offs. FC Groningen won the play-offs for the first time since 2007, overcoming Vitesse and AZ, and qualified for the 2014–15 Europa League, in which the club lost to Aberdeen in the second qualifying round.
  Van de Looi's finest hour came in the following year, when FC Groningen defeated Vitesse and Excelsior in the quarter and semi-final of the 2014-15 KNVB Cup to qualify for the final against PEC Zwolle, led by former FC Groningen manager Ron Jans. About 25,000 FC Groningen fans descended on Rotterdam for the club's second overall and first cup final appearance since 1989. The deadlock was broken in the second half of the match, when two assists by substitute Jarchinio Antonia allowed Albert Rusnák to score twice in the span of 11 minutes, giving FC Groningen a 2–0 victory and the club's first major trophy.
caption: The evacuated north stand after the Euroborg fire
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