Khalid Boulahrouz on AZ's Europa League Loss to Sunderland
Khalid Boulahrouz didn’t bother dressing it up. AZ, he felt, walked away from their Europa League opener against Sunderland with far less than they deserved – and Mexx Meerdink was at the heart of that frustration.
AZ lost 1-0, but it wasn’t for lack of chances. They carved Sunderland open often enough, only to leave the door wide open at the other end. Ten minutes from time came the moment that stuck with everyone in the Ziggo Sport studio.
Meerdink, clear and in position to level the match, hesitated. One touch too many, one thought too long. His eventual effort rolled in tamely, low and predictable, and Robin Roefs stuck out a leg to block what should never have been savable.
“At this level, at least one of them has to go in,” Boulahrouz said, exasperation obvious as he replayed the miss in his mind. The chance, he insisted, demanded ruthlessness.
“This chance for Meerdink. It is simply hit too tamely, low to the ground. If you are ruthless, you just smash it into the roof of the net,” he argued. “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 distinguish yourself.”
For Boulahrouz, the problem started before the shot. The delay, the extra touch, the loss of conviction.
“Delaying it once more, taking another touch, that means you are no longer quite set yourself,” he said. “As a result, you can no longer strike it the way you want. This is simply wasting a hundred per cent chance.”
His irritation didn’t stop there. Across the full 90 minutes, he felt Meerdink never truly imposed himself.
“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 take them.”
Meerdink didn’t hide. He faced the cameras and accepted his part in the defeat.
“I think at certain moments I still lost the ball a little too easily, but I also had a number of good moments,” he reflected. “The point for my development is that I have to keep doing it consistently.”
On the late miss, he was blunt with himself.
“That ball at the end, I have to smash it in. No thinking, just with the instep. In the box I have to be deadly, become deadly.”
You might expect that honesty to ease the criticism. It did not.
Theo Janssen, sitting alongside Boulahrouz in the Ziggo studio, bristled at Meerdink’s suggestion that he’d played “quite a decent match”.
“Interesting,” Janssen said. “He has the feeling he still played quite a decent match. He is quite satisfied. I would advise him to watch this match back calmly once more, because it comes down to a number of moments in which you have to be deadly as a striker and in which you have to be strong to give your team some calm. Those few moments are not enough, friend.”
Janssen sees the talent. That, perhaps, is why his words cut so sharply.
“He is a very enjoyable footballer, he is technically refined, has all the attributes to be a good player,” he insisted. “Only he lacks that hunger. You have to do everything for it. He must always give everything for it, and I sometimes miss that a little with him. He has so much potential, but he is not getting everything out of it.”
For AZ, the defeat to Sunderland goes down as a missed opportunity. For Meerdink, it may be remembered as something else entirely: the night when the demand to become a “killer” stopped being a cliché and turned into a clear, unforgiving expectation.
