Sondre Ørjasæter did not need to score to be the story of the afternoon. In FC Twente's 9-0 win away at Excelsior, the midfielder finished with five assists, no goals, and a match rating of 10.0.
Five goal involvements from one player in a single Eredivisie fixture is a rare line, and all five of Ørjasæter's came as the architect rather than the finisher. While his teammates did the scoring, Twente's midfielder did the creating, picking out five separate goals over the course of the match.
A perfect number
A 10.0 rating does not happen by accident. It takes a performance where almost every decision on the ball works out, and Ørjasæter's did. Five assists in one outing puts him at the top of the goal involvement charts for the round, ahead of anyone who merely scored a hat-trick or a brace.
Excelsior had no answer. By full time the scoreline read 0-9, and Ørjasæter's fingerprints were on more than half of Twente's goals. He did not need his own name on the scoresheet to be the most decisive player on the pitch.
The numbers behind the performance
- Goal involvements: 5 (0 goals, 5 assists)
- Match rating: 10.0
- Final score: Excelsior 0-9 FC Twente
For a midfielder, a night like this is about vision and delivery rather than finishing, and Ørjasæter supplied both again and again. Five assists in ninety minutes is the kind of number that tends to stand alone at the top of a round's charts, and on this occasion nobody came close.