AZ effortlessly deals with Gil Vicente and reaches the Conference League group stage

AZ has qualified for the main tournament of the Conference League without any problems. After the first leg against the Portuguese Gil Vicente was already won 4-0 in Alkmaar a week ago, the return was not exactly an exciting duel.

AZ won 2-1 in the northwest of Portugal and, just like last season, can prepare for the group stage of the third European club tournament.

Last week Gil Vicente, the number five of last season in Portugal, managed to limit the damage to the last fifteen minutes. For a long time, AZ led badly with 1-0, but thanks to three goals in the final phase, AZ provided itself with an excellent starting position in the play-offs.

Not even a minute had passed when Dani de Wit hit the post with an actually failed shot. And the post also got in the way of the 0-1 when Vangelis Pavlidis tried with a seesaw.

After an hour of play, Hakon Evjen gave the Alkmaarders the lead. On a pass from Pavlidis, the Norwegian skilfully tipped the ball over goalkeeper Brian Araujo. AZ made optimal use of the space created and scored again less than five minutes later via Tijani Reijnders.

In the final phase, Mauro Boselli did something back when the Alkmaar defense no longer made a too sharp impression and after that the Portuguese also showed themselves a few times in the half of AZ. However, it was all too late and not efficient enough to get AZ into trouble.