Following their triumph in last season's Eerste Divisie, Cambuur begin life in the top flight with the visit of Groningen to the Cambuur-Stadion on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the away side come into the new campaign with the wind in their sails having equalled their best-ever finish in a decade last term.
Match preview
Groningen played out a goalless draw in their final pre-season game at the Hitachi Capital Mobility Stadium against Venezia on Friday.
Playing at home for just the second time in seven matches, Danny Buijs's men were unable to find a way past a resolute rearguard.
The Green-White Army still enjoyed a decent pre-season outing overall, picking up three victories and two draws, while suffering defeats to German sides SC Verl and Borussia Monchengladbach.
Having reached the playoffs of the Conference League in the 2020-21 season where they lost to Utrecht, Sunday's visitors will have their sights set on a return to continental action for the first time since 2016.
Their first task comes against a newly-promoted Cambuur side who have not beaten them in any of the last four meetings in all competitions between the teams.
Cambuur amassed an impressive tally of 92 points from 38 games and romped to the Eerste Divisie title, securing their promotion with four games left to play.
Henk de Jong's men ended their five-year absence in style, netting a total of 109 goals, which was at least 30 more than any other team in the division.
The Yellow-Blues were involved in just three pre-season fixtures - a 6-0 rout of SC Telstar followed by a narrow 2-1 defeat to PEC Zwolle, before playing out a 2-2 draw versus Waasland-Beveren on Saturday.
Saturday's hosts were near-perfect on their home turf in the second division, and a repeat of that at the top level would go a long way in avoiding their disastrous 2016 campaign where they finished bottom.
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Team News
Radinio Balker is ruled out of Sunday's contest as he continues to nurse a knee injury which he picked up in action for former side Almere City in their unsuccessful play-off charge.
Belgian starlet Cyril Ngonge is expected to be handed his competitive debut following his move from RKC Waalwijk last month.
Having netted 38 times for Cambuur last season, Robert Muhren's departure has left a huge goalscoring void, which Sam Hendriks has been brought in to fill.
Despite not being a guaranteed starter for the hosts, David Sambissa penned a new contract in the summer, extending his stay by one year with the option for another.
Cambuur possible starting lineup:
Stevens; Sambissa, Schouten, MacIntosh, Schmidt; Breij, Hoedemakers, Maukun; Paulissen, Kallon, Hendriks
Groningen possible starting lineup:
Leeuwenburgh; Te Wierik, Dammers, Sverko; Suslov, Matusiwa, El Messaoudi, El Hankouri; Ngonge, Strand Larsen, Joosten
We say: Cambuur 1-1 Groningen
Judging by their previous meetings, there is little to choose between the teams ahead of this one. We expect a tight and cagey affair with a share of the spoils at the end of the 90 minutes.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Cambuur win with a probability of 56.46%. A win for Groningen had a probability of 22.74% and a draw had a probability of 20.8%.
The most likely scoreline for a Cambuur win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.6%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (7.49%) and 1-0 (7.09%). The likeliest Groningen win was 1-2 (5.82%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (9.09%). The actual scoreline of 1-2 was predicted with a 5.8% likelihood.
