AZ's Missed Opportunities Against Sunderland: Meerdink's Crucial Moment

Khalid Boulahrouz walked away from AZ’s Europa League opener with one overriding thought: this should never have ended in defeat.

AZ lost 1-0 to Sunderland, but the scoreline told only half the story. The Dutch side carved out enough chances to take control of the tie, only to waste them, and in the post-match glare one name kept returning to the discussion: Mexx Meerdink.

A moment that wouldn’t go away

Ten minutes from time came the moment that still gnawed at Boulahrouz in the Ziggo Sport studio. AZ were chasing an equaliser when Meerdink found himself with a huge chance to level the game. Time, space, the goal in front of him. And then hesitation.

He delayed, took one touch too many, and hit his shot too tamely. Robin Roefs stretched out a leg and blocked it. Chance gone. Game slipping away.

“At this level, at least one of them has to go in,” Boulahrouz said, clearly irritated as he replayed AZ’s missed opportunities. When he zoomed in on Meerdink’s late effort, the frustration sharpened.

“This chance from Meerdink. It is just hit too weakly, low to the ground. If you are ruthless, you just smash it into the roof of the net,” he insisted. “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 set yourself apart.”

For Boulahrouz, the problem was as much in the build-up to the shot as the finish itself.

“Delaying it once more, taking another touch, that means you are not quite in the right position yourself. Because of that, you can no longer strike it the way you want. This is simply wasting a 100 per cent chance,” he said. “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 finish them.”

Meerdink holds his hands up

Meerdink did not hide. He knew the spotlight would find him and accepted that parts of his game had fallen short.

“I think at some moments I lost the ball a bit too easily, but I also had a number of good moments,” he reflected. “My area for development is that I have to keep doing it consistently.”

On the decisive miss, he did not argue with the analysts.

“That ball at the end, I have to smash it in. Not think and just hit it with the instep. In the box I have to be, become, deadly.”

It was the kind of honest self-assessment coaches like to hear. But in the Ziggo studio, Theo Janssen listened carefully – and didn’t like everything he heard.

Janssen’s blunt verdict

Where some might have praised Meerdink for his candour, Janssen focused on the striker’s overall reading of his own performance. That, he felt, revealed just as much as the missed chance.

“Interesting. He has the feeling that he still played quite a decent match. He is quite satisfied,” Janssen said, his tone cutting through the polite analysis. “I would advise him to calmly watch this match back again, because it comes down to a number of moments in which, as a striker, you have to be deadly and in which you have to be strong to give your team some calm. Those few moments are not enough, my friend.”

Janssen sees the talent. That’s what makes his criticism sting.

“He is a very enjoyable footballer, he is technically refined, has all the attributes to be a good player,” he concluded. “Only he lacks that hunger. You have to do everything for it. He must always give everything for it, and I miss that a little with him sometimes. He has so much potential, but he is not getting everything out of it.”

For AZ, the defeat to Sunderland will go down as a missed opportunity in Europe. For Meerdink, it may be remembered as something else entirely: the night he either hardens into the “killer” his critics demand – or lets another chance to change his story slip by.