AZ defeated Almere City at home with great difficulty. The Alkmaarders only distanced themselves from the visitors from Flevoland in the final phase (4-1). Substitutes Dani de Wit and Jesper Odgaard were especially important. Vangelis Pavlidis scored for the eighth consecutive home game and that is a record.
Before the AZ match it became clear that Bruno Martins Indi was missing due to an injury. Trainer Pascal Jansen did not want to take any risks in view of the important matches against Legia Warsaw and PSV. Wouter Goes replaced him in the heart of the defense. The absence of Martins Indi was a hard blow for AZ, as Riechedly Bazoer also has an injury. Despite the injury problems, the Alkmaarders quickly took the lead.
Top scorer Vangelis Pavlidis made it 1-0 on a pass from Jordy Clasie. The Greek thus broke a record, as he scored for the eighth home game in a row. You would expect that the home team would have a simple evening, but nothing could be further from the truth. Almere City increasingly came out of its shell during the first half and had better chances than AZ. One of the biggest was for Stije Resink, but goalkeeper Mathew Ryan put a stop to it.
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Almere City also continued to attack brutally in Alkmaar in the second half. Yukinari Sugawara’s unnecessary loss of ball led to two great chances for the visitors. It was mainly thanks to Ryan that those shots by Jochem Ritmeester van de Kamp and Rajiv van La Parra did not hit the mark. However, the Australian had no chance on Loïc Mbe Soh’s header: 1-1. The Frenchman defeated Alexandre Penetra in the air.
Fence of the dam
Dani de Wit started again from the reserve bench and was frustrated for a long time. He got the chance to prove his worth after 64 minutes. The midfielder grabbed it with both hands, because two minutes later the ball was in the net. De Wit hooked the ball from close range behind goalkeeper Nordin Bakker: 2-1. Jens Odgaard, another substitute, was responsible for the 3-1 through David Møller Wolfe. The final chord was for Pavlidis with a beautiful marker.
With the victory, AZ takes over third place on goal difference from FC Twente. The Alkmaarders will play against Legia Warsaw in the Conference League on Thursday, followed by PSV on Sunday.
AZ setup: Ryan; Sugawara, Goes, Penetra, Møller Wolfe; Clasie, Dantas (Odgaard/64), Mihailovic (D. De Wit/64); Poku (Addai/46), Pavlidis, Van Bommel (Van Brederode/46)