AZ Alkmaar dominates Heracles Almelo

AZ Alkmaar made a big statement on Sunday, by winning the game against Heracles Almelo with an impressive 4-0 for the home playing team. With this win at AFAS Stadium, they reclaimed the sixth position in the Eredivisie.

(Image credit to voeballtrips.com)

 The home team started off looking very strong from the very beginning, and pushed Heracles' defense to their best abilities, adding to their visitors' growing worries for degradation.

Just a couple of days after their win over Sparta Prague, AZ Alkmaar kept their winning streak mentality and showed no sign of slowing down. You could see right away that they wanted to keep the momentum going, especially against a club that is sitting dead last in the competition. History was on AZ’s side, too. Coming into this match, they haven't lost against Heracles in front of their home crowd in thirteen straight matches. It also didn't help that Heracles already had 65 goals against them this season before even starting this game.

This was the lineup for the match AZ-Heracles:

AZ Alkmaar: Verhulst, Dijkstra, Goes, van Duijl, de Wit, Daal, Koopmeiners, Mijnans, Smit, Patati, Parrott.

Heracles: Pasveer, Wieckhoff, Mirani, Van Hoorenbeeck, Mesik, Zamburek, Bozinovski, Hrustic, Ahlstrand, Ünüvar, Zeefuik. 

First Half

AZ Alkmaar didn't waste any time. Right after the match started, Koopmeiner and Smit took control of the midfield with Heracles nowhere to be seen. Just in five minutes, De Wit whipped in a cross from the left, and Troy Parrott shot it in 1-0 AZ, and the crowd from AZ went wild. The rest of the first half was kinda a one-way road, with AZ dominating with over 70% ball possession and Heracles barely having the ball. Their only plan seems to be passing long balls to Zeefuik and hoping for the best.

Right before the whistle of halftime, Parrot wasn't slowing down. He turned and cut the ball back for captain Sven Mijnans, who shot it past Pasveer to make it a 2-0 lead for AZ Alkmaar, who walked into the break looking comfortable.

Second Half

Heracles started this half with a little more aggression, but also a couple of yellow cards for Wieckhoff and Zeefuik, as they were trying to cut AZ's rhythm. But sadly, that didn't happen, because the defense led by Wouter Goes didn't let Heracles breathe with just one shot at the goal the whole game.

Things did get interesting during the 74th minute. Mees de Wit shot at the goal with a rocket shot, but the flag went up for offside. After a tense few minutes during the VAR check, it turned out that he was just onside, which meant 3-0 AZ Alkmaar, and Heracles looked beaten, but AZ wasn't done yet. Just 10 minutes later, Isak Jensen added a fourth goal to the list, because of an offense on Heracles' side. AZ finished the match with 23 shots. Heracles only had 4.

Peer Koopmeiners was named man of the match after scoring early. Mijnans and de Wit were everywhere and helped control the game and made sure AZ took those three points. In the end, Heracles is still at the bottom with eight points away from safety, and they were running out of time.

Now, AZ can turn its attention back to the Conference League, where its second leg against Sparta Prague is coming up next Thursday. With them still being in the Conference League as well as the KNVB cup, they can't afford to let their guard down. Heracles, on the other hand, needs a miracle to avoid degradation.

Article written by Zoë Wokke