Fourth place further out of sight for AZ: “Failed to take that chance”

Until the last seconds of the match against Sparta Rotterdam, AZ seemed to take full advantage of FC Twente’s loss of points. The Tukkers had played 1-1 against Heracles Almelo earlier in the evening, which allowed the Alkmaarders to reach one point. That scenario eventually ended up in the trash, because Vito van Crooij made 1-1 from a free kick in injury time.

Pascal Jansen after Sparta late equalizer: “You have to survive such a final phase” – Orange Pictures / Hans van der Valk

“I am definitely sick of this”, AZ trainer Pascal Jansen starts in conversation with ESPN. “You have to win this match 1-0, perhaps we should have scored more goals. A draw in this way is something you don’t think possible,” sighs Jansen.

In the final phase, Sparta was going to play everything or not, so that the butt-squeeze remained for AZ. “A number of precarious moments arose in that phase for our goal. Two or three of these were very simply initiated by ourselves. In the end, it doesn’t matter, you have to make sure you survive such a phase.”

“It doesn’t matter in the end, you have to make sure that you survive such a phase”

AZ-TRAINER PASCAL JANSEN

The Alkmaarders could therefore have benefited from FC Twente’s loss of points. “That of course makes it doubly disappointing, because I had seen that they had played a draw. You first have to do it yourself and we also had that chance. We failed to take it tonight”, Jansen concluded.

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Pavlidis’ goal was celebrated by the AZ players – Pro Shots / Toon Dompeling

Afterwards, Vangelis Pavlidis was also disappointed with the result. “We lose two points again”, the Greek begins in conversation with ESPN† “We should have won this game, we had enough chances to score more goals. You have to keep zero to go home with three points.”

As is often the case this season, the striker scored the opening goal, but that is of little use to him. “It’s nice to score often, but you’re not happy with a goal if you don’t win. I really thought we would win, because we only conceded that goal in the last seconds. It’s definitely sour when you draw, if you know that Twente has lost points.”

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