Last night he was still on the bench at AZ’s first in the semi-final against West Ham United, tonight Zico Buurmeester scored the opening goal on behalf of Jong AZ. The Alkmaar talents were crowned the best U23 team of the season thanks to a 1-2 victory over Jong Ajax. “Scoring just after the break gave us a boost.”
Buurmeester: “It was all quite hectic. Yesterday I was still in the selection against West Ham and this morning we flew back.”
“After the flight I quickly went home and took a shower,” continues Buurmeester. “I grabbed some clean underpants, ate something and went straight on.”
For Jong AZ coach Maarten Martens it was quite a puzzle to get his selection together in time. Not only Buurmeester was in London last night, the entire selection of AZ Under 19 was present at the match in the British capital. Technical director Max Huiberts had given the ‘outing’ as a gift to the team when it won the Youth League.
“We have the vision to put boys in uncomfortable situations and then see how they can deal with it. See if they can switch. We can conclude that we can give them a very big compliment for that,” said the retiring trainer of Young AZ.