If AZ is already 3-0 ahead at halftime, you expect a big win. The fact that the final score against Amica Wronki ended up being 3-1 yesterday felt like a disappointment. But on closer inspection, it was an important win on the way to the second round of the UEFA Cup. Yesterday's lesson: even AZ cannot always play 90 minutes of fluent football.
To beat tough, defensive teams like Wronki, you need to move the ball at a high pace and find your way to success through the wings. AZ did that excellently at times yesterday. There were also phases in the match, especially in the second half when the soft field became increasingly worse, when everything was unnecessary and attention threatened to weaken, but this did not lead to major problems. The only goal conceded came from a penalty kick. Dembinski scored.
AZ was threatening for large parts of the match, with Kenneth Perez as a smart strategist. The Dane often avoided the physical fight in the vanguard, dropped slightly and cleverly chose a position to serve the strikers with through balls. He also regularly combined with the emerging back Tim de Cler.
These two sense each other, just as Meerdink and Kromkamp do on the right. By always involving one of the midfielders, triangles were always created. Anyone who executes that well, as AZ did yesterday in the first half, is almost impossible to defend. The fact that the players master this practice form so well is the result of targeted training.
Amica Wronki was unable to throw sand into the AZ machine. The Poles did not dare either. They played, as expected, defensive and waiting. Exactly the game that offered AZ the opportunity to build up. The full-backs De Cler and Kromkamp were given plenty of space, as they often get in the Dutch competition. It is partly what makes AZ's game so dangerous. You wonder why there is no trainer who tries to keep both backs at the back by deploying a specific left and right winger. If De Cler and Kromkamp were to focus solely on their defensive tasks, you would take an important sting out of AZ's game.
Yesterday it was De Cler who provided the cross in the 13th minute from which Barry van Galen opened the scoring. The midfielder headed the ball over the tall goalkeeper Mielcarz. A few minutes earlier, Stein should have made Huysegems 1-0, but he missed in front of an open goal. AZ could afford it, plenty of opportunities would follow. In the 35th minute, Perez almost scored from a free kick when a clump of grass caused an unexpected turn of the ball. The goalkeeper was attentive; from the corner that followed, Joris Mathijsen almost headed home. Grzybowski made the save on the goal line.
A minute later it happened. Once again Perez was allowed to take a free kick. His cross was lightly touched by Martijn Meerdink's head: 0-2. Followed shortly afterwards by AZ's third goal. Huysegems scored after Van Galen had bumped into the goalkeeper. What seemed to be a big victory eventually turned out to be a 'normal' victory.
Amica Wronki tried to make up the deficit in the second half, had a few small opportunities, but was unable to achieve more than one goal. AZ, on the other hand, could have scored two or three more goals. But the sharpness was gone. Adriaanse made an attempt to bring new energy into the team by suddenly changing three players, but Ali Elkhattabi, Olaf Lindenbergh and Robin Nelisse could not change the score.
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