AZ's Europa League Opener: Missed Chances Cost Against Sunderland
Khalid Boulahrouz could hardly believe AZ walked away from their Europa League opener against Sunderland with nothing.
A 1-0 defeat, despite a stack of chances. One moment, one hesitation, kept coming back in the post-match debate: Mexx Meerdink’s late miss.
One touch too many
With ten minutes left, AZ finally carved Sunderland open. Meerdink found himself with the kind of chance strikers dream about – time, space, the goal opening up. He waited. Then waited again. The shot that followed lacked conviction and clipped the outstretched leg of goalkeeper Robin Roefs.
The opportunity was gone. So, for AZ, was the game.
“In matches at this level, at least one of those chances has to go in,” Boulahrouz said in the Ziggo Sport studio, running through the Alkmaar side’s squandered opportunities.
He zoomed in on Meerdink’s big moment.
“This chance for Meerdink. It’s simply hit too tamely, low to the ground. If you are ruthless, you just smash it into the roof of the net,” he argued. “Theo (Janssen) rightly said: you have to become a killer as a striker. Especially if he wants to get to the Netherlands national team. Then these are the chances in which you can distinguish yourself.”
For Boulahrouz, the problem was as much mental as technical.
“Delaying it once more, taking another touch, that means you are no longer quite set yourself,” he said. “As a result, you can no longer strike it the way you want. This is simply wasting a hundred per cent chance.”
The former defender didn’t hide his irritation.
“These are things he really has to cut out. Looking at the whole match, he was simply too sloppy, not good as a focal point… And the chances he got, you have to take them.”
Meerdink accepts blame – and more criticism
Meerdink didn’t try to dodge responsibility. He knew exactly where the spotlight would land.
“I think at certain moments I still lost the ball a little too easily, but I also had a number of good moments,” he reflected. “The point for my development is that I have to keep doing it consistently.”
On the decisive miss, he didn’t sugar-coat it.
“That ball at the end, I have to smash it in. No thinking, just with the instep. In the box I have to be deadly, become deadly.”
His honesty didn’t spare him from a sharper verdict from Theo Janssen, who took issue with the tone of Meerdink’s self-assessment.
“Interesting,” Janssen said. “He has the feeling he still played quite a decent match. He is quite satisfied. I would advise him to watch this match back calmly once more, because it comes down to a number of moments in which you have to be deadly as a striker and in which you have to be strong to give your team some calm. Those few moments are not enough, friend.”
Janssen then went straight to the heart of his concern.
“He is a very enjoyable footballer, he is technically refined, has all the attributes to be a good player. Only he lacks that hunger. You have to do everything for it. He must always give everything for it, and I sometimes miss that a little with him. He has so much potential, but he is not getting everything out of it.”
AZ leave their opener empty-handed, their young striker under the harshest kind of European education: chances don’t just define games, they shape careers.
