Alkmaar's brief flirtation with competence

If you enjoy your football with a heavy dose of "mathematically possible but functionally impossible," then the AFAS Stadion was the place to be on Thursday night. AZ Alkmaar entered this Conference League quarter-final second leg trailing 3-0, a deficit about as easy to overcome as convincing a toddler that broccoli is actually a tiny tree made of candy.

The first half was a masterclass in professional apathy. A 0-0 scoreline at the break suggested both teams had reached a gentleman's agreement to simply stand around until the catering staff started putting out the bitterballen. Shakhtar, managed by Arda Turan—a man who once famously threw a boot at a linesman but now prefers the quiet dignity of actually winning—looked like a team that had already checked into their hotel for the semi-finals.

Then, actual football broke out. Alisson Santana, a man who clearly views the AZ defense as a collection of particularly unconvincing traffic cones, popped up in the 58th minute to give Shakhtar the lead. At 4-0 on aggregate, the tie was more than over; it was deep in the ground, covered in concrete, and being used as the foundation for a new car park.

But credit to AZ for providing a brief moment of unintentional comedy. They decided that if they were going to go out, they’d at least make the highlights reel look like a contest. Isak Jensen and Matej Sín scored within seven minutes of each other, briefly convincing the home crowd that a MIRACLE was on the cards. For ten glorious minutes, Alkmaar lived in a fantasy land where three-goal deficits are merely friendly suggestions rather than binding legal documents.

Naturally, reality is a cruel mistress. Luca Meirelles popped up in the 83rd minute to equalize, effectively turning off the lights and locking the doors on AZ’s European dreams. The 2-2 draw on the night was a polite fiction; the 5-2 aggregate scoreline is the cold, hard truth of a tie where one team brought a toothpick to a gunfight.

Shakhtar now march on to face Crystal Palace in the semi-finals, a sentence that still feels like it was generated by a malfunctioning copy of Football Manager. For AZ, it’s back to the Eredivisie to fight for the right to do this all over again next season. CONSISTENCY is key, even if it’s consistently coming up short when the lights are brightest. This was GLORIOUS failure in its purest, most predictable form.