AZ lost 2-1 to Aston Villa in Birmingham in the Conference League. Due to this defeat, AZ is unable to spend the winter in Europe.
The other group match played between Legia Warsaw and Zrinjski Mostar ended with a 2-0 victory for the Poles. This means that after four matches they sit with Aston Villa on nine points, while AZ and Zrinjski have three points.
If the Alkmaard team still wants to have a chance of advancing, they need to win at least their last two games against Legia and Zrinjski.
AZ wakes up after a bad start
In the third minute, AZ appeared to be behind Villa Park but the goal was disallowed due to offside. A few minutes earlier, Vangelis Pavlidis had cleared the ball on the line.
The tone was clear, especially considering 1-4 two weeks ago. However, the game became more balanced after that. Pavlidis’ long-range shot was scored by a large crowd of fans, but the ball went out near the goal.
Nothing much happened in Birmingham for a long time, until Pavlidis’ magnificent goal just before half-time was – rightfully so – disallowed for offside. The Greek player had another chance before half-time, but this time Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez made the save. Last month, he was named the best goalkeeper of the year, largely due to his performance with the Argentina national team.
Thanks in part to a penalty save, Argentina won their third World Cup title in Qatar. Martínez saved another effort from Pavlidis after the break, but a cross to Ruben van Bommel might have made more sense.
There wasn’t much to regret, though, because a minute later Pavlidis took the lead again and this time the Greek finished the match confidently: 0-1.
Villa had to recover for a while, but in the 60th minute it looked like the English would have equalized had it not been for Boubacar Kamara, who collected the ball in front of the empty goal. The referee accidentally awarded a corner that went to Diego Carlos’ head: 1-1.
Ten minutes later, AZ suffered another defeat when Ollie Watkins headed clear from close range after Douglas Luiz’s fine cross. Alkmaarders could not recover from the 1-2 defeat, which made the European winter very difficult.
Source: NOS
I’m George Gonzalez, a professional journalist and author at The Nation View. With more than 5 years of experience in the field, I specialize in covering sports news for various print media outlets. My passion for writing has enabled me to craft stories that capture the attention of readers all over the world.
