AZ managed to deal with Vitesse (3-1) in their own stadium tonight. Trainer Pascal Jansen indicated after the game that it is always difficult to play football against the Thomas Letsch team. Jansen also indicated that he was happy with the return of Fredrik Midtsjø.
“Playing against Vitesse is not always easy,” Jansen begins in conversation with ESPN. “They have a lot of drive forward and go into a lot of hand-to-hand fights. Then you have to do two things: fight those fights when asked and play a good positioning game. That worked out well at times tonight.”
AZ had not won the two previous competition matches. This victory was therefore much needed. “I am very happy that we have completed the phase in which we had some taps. It was extremely important to win again after the international break. We managed that against a difficult opponent.”
For the first time since February 27, Midtsjø was back in the starting lineup at AZ. “We are very happy that he is available again. He has played properly for an hour. Now we are going to try to expand that,” said Jansen.