Changeable: that is the first word that comes to Owen Wijndal when he thinks of this season of AZ. In the remainder of the competition, the left back will compete with FC Twente with his team for placement in the Conference League. That fight starts on Sunday afternoon (2.30 pm) in Alkmaar with a match against Ajax.
AZ captain Wijndal doesn’t understand it exactly either: how is it that AZ often wins in top matches, only to let it go against clubs from the right-hand row? “It is very difficult to put your finger on the sore spot,” he analyzes. “It certainly has to do with how much you want it together as a group in such duels…”
After the winter break, AZ won nicely against Feyenoord and PSV, but in recent weeks crucial points were lost against Sparta, PEC Zwolle and Willem II. “That’s just bad. We try to work on it every day on the training field, but if I knew exactly what it was, I would have brought it up before it went wrong.”
No straight line
It is in any case a strange season for AZ, with an erratic performance curve and good football in one phase and difficult game in the other. “We had a very difficult start. After that we did very well for a long time. Now it is going less well and we are looking for recovery again. Now we have to turn it around again.”
