AZ suddenly has to look down due to home defeat against FC Twente


Sunday, March 13, 2022 at 9:51 PM• Dominic Mostert • Last update: 21:55

AZ took an expensive defeat on Sunday evening. Pascal Jansen’s team hoped to stay in the footsteps of number three Feyenoord, but lost 0-1 to FC Twente and therefore has to look down, because the Enschede players are in fifth place with the same number of points. Joshua Brenet scored the only goal of the game in the second half. For AZ, the unbeaten series in the Eredivisie came to an end after fourteen games.

AZ, with starting debutant Peer Koopmeiners at the kick-off, hoped to recover after the painful 2-1 defeat against Bodø/Glimt in the Conference League. Jansen’s team was unable to impress in the first half. AZ played conservatively and rarely came up with a dangerous attack. Twente was the dominant party, also without creating great opportunities. After half an hour, Daan Rots did score, but he did so from an offside position. On the other side, Pantelis Hatzidiakos gave a header that didn’t go in the right direction and so it remained at 0-0 before half time.

Twente fell far back in the second half. AZ was allowed to make the game, but failed to do so. In fact, Twente took the lead after an hour. Gijs Smal sent a nice cross pass between six players from AZ to Brenet, who was able to take the ball just outside the penalty area. He held off Wijndal and pushed the ball behind goalkeeper Peter Vindahl: 0-1. Dani de Wit then had the equalizer for shooting after a low cross, but Robin Pröpper cleared the ball for the line.

For AZ, the defeat is hard. The Alkmaarders could have approached Feyenoord to a point in the run-up to next week’s match between Ajax and Feyenoord. If Feyenoord lost points in Amsterdam, AZ could have taken fourth place, but that scenario is now out of the question. In fact, Jansen’s team has to defend fourth place, because only a better goal difference separates AZ from Twente.

No. Team m W G V † Pnt
1 Ajax 26 20 3 3 66 63
2 PSV 26 20 1 5 32 61
3 Feyenoord 26 17 4 5 35 55
4 AZ 26 16 3 7 20 51
5 FC Twente 26 15 6 5 10 51
6 Vitesse 25 12 5 8 -6 41
7 FC Utrecht 26 11 7 8 10 40
8 Fc Groningen 26 8 9 9 -4 33
9 SC Cambuur 26 10 3 13 -12 33
10 NEC 26 8 7 11 -10 31
11 Heracles Almelo 26 7 6 13 -8 27
12 sc Heerenveen 26 7 6 13 -14 27
13 Go Ahead Eagles 26 7 6 13 -16 27
14 RKC Waalwijk 26 5 9 12 -14 24
15 Fortuna Sittard 25 6 4 15 -27 22
16 William II 26 6 4 16 -23 22
17 Sparta Rotterdam 24 4 8 12 -18 20
18 PEC Zwolle 26 5 5 16 -21 20