How AZ Alkmaar grinded out a deserved 1-0 victory against Ajax

John Van den Brom believed that Ajax’ win against Real Madrid could inspire his own side in their underdog role against the Goedenzonen. AZ Alkmaar have been in the rung below the big three Eredivisie sides but have struggled to challenge Ajax, PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord in matchups. AZ have a young side from the youth academy but with Van den Brom leaving at the end of the season and being replaced by his assistant Arne Slot, this win was important in giving a young side confidence for their tussle with Feyenoord for third place in the Eredivisie table.

AZ Alkmaar’s rigid defensive shape


Erik Ten Hag’s side thrive on creating numerical superiority for the opposition in the wide and central areas. AZ Alkmaar nullified this by dropping into a 5-3-2 defensive shape where wingers Calvin Stengs and Oussama Idrissi sometimes acted as wing-backs to cover for fullbacks, Thomas Ouwejan and Jonas Svensson. In the pressing phase, captain, Guus Til was tasked with keeping Lasse Schone in his cover shadow when the Dane occupied his zone while pushing up to engage Frenkie de Jong when he received possession and dropped into Ajax’ defensive three chain.

Fredrik Midstjo would then take the responsibility of marking Schone while Adam Maher would track the movements of Donny Van den Beek. After ball loss, higher up the pitch, AZ would situationally counter-press with centre-backs Teun Koopmeiners and Ron Vlaar moving higher up the pitch to prevent Ajax from constructing any attacks. Ajax were not able to work overloads on the flank, quick counters after regaining possession were nullified by AZ’s counter-press and offside trap while space in the central zones was limited due to AZ’s rigid defensive shape.

AZ Alkmaar’s positional play in possession

On their training pitch, AZ Alkmaar have demarcations to split the field into zones including the wide lateral zones, half-space and central spaces. They practice and frequently implement adequate player spacing in build-up play while in attacking situations, they like to fill out all the zones on the pitch. The full-back and winger connections are pivotal to their attacking sequences, especially in interchanging between the half-spaces and wide-spaces. In the picture above, Stengs is in possession with his full-back, Svensson underlapping him by making a run in the half-space.

AZ Alkmaar’s training ground.

Coincidentally, the other full-back, Ouwejan won possession and played it to Stengs so he finds himself in the deep central area, Idrissi has pulled out wide on the ball far flank with Guus Til in the ball-far half-space. Seuntjens, Svensson and Ouwejan are all trying to move into space to create vertical and triangular passing connections for the man in possession. AZ frequently constructed counter-attacks to avert Ajax counter-pressing by playing well-rehearsed triangular build-up routines while Idrissi and Stengs consistently stretched play. Idrissi found space with two great opportunities as AZ could have had a more comfortable victory with some better finishing.

AZ adjusted to Ajax high-pressure by playing long-balls into Seuntjens and other attackers to limit Ajax’ opportunities to regain possession in their half. Vlaar and Koopmeiners split wider as usual with Adam Maher remaining in the zone between them as a passing option. Koopmeiners would usually be the one to play more long-balls as his pass completion percentage in this game was 74% which is below his season average of him completing 69 passes per game at a success rate of 86% according to WhoScored.

AZ Alkmaar switching to a 6 chain in the second-half

Hakim Ziyech went off for Kasper Dolberg at the start of the second-half as AZ switched to a back 6 with both wingers, Stengs and Idrissi dropping into the back-line at the same time as wing backs. This structurally manifested itself as a 6-3-1/6-2-2 as Ajax began to push forward and create more opportunities of meaning. Having both the wingers drop into the line, allowed Vlaar and Koopmeiners to be more aggressive in pushing up against their markers. In the picture above, you can see Koopmeiners pushing up to mark Dolberg and ensure that he is unable to receive the ball in the deep areas and lay it off to a teammate in between the lines. The rest of the defence is also well-aligned to play an opposition player offside while the midfield line is constraining space in the centre and denying the man on the ball time.

AZ scored through a set-piece with their 21-year-old captain, Guus Til bagging his 10th of the season. However, with Stengs’ creative ability at providing through balls and Idrissi’s dribbling ability with his pace in behind, AZ still created opportunities on the counter despite sitting in such a defensive shape. Til also brought some attacking invention as he was placed in a higher position than the wingers but was clever enough to hold the ball up and play his wingers into space. AZ finished the game with 17 shots to Ajax’ 15 with 8 shots on target to Ajax’ 6. AZ also managed 2 shots from inside the six-yard box as Ajax had none while AZ worked 9 shots from inside the penalty area to Ajax’ 7.

Conclusion

AZ Alkmaar dominated the first half proceedings and managed to limit Ajax’ high-pressure and attacking style. Van den Brom, Slot and this young AZ playing staff managed to execute a well-thought-out game-plan to gain an important victory which will affect the Eredivisie title race and AZ’ own aspirations for third place. The Cheeseheads, as they are more affectionately known, have eked closer to the Eredivisie top three as they have finished third in 2 of the last 4 seasons. Hopefully, AZ can keep this organically built young side together under an intelligent new coach to be competitive in the Eredivisie and in the Europa League.