Khalid Boulahrouz Critiques AZ's Missed Chances Against Sunderland

Khalid Boulahrouz did not bother to sugar-coat it. AZ should have taken something from their Europa League opener against Sunderland. They didn’t. They lost 1-0, and for the former defender, the reason was brutally simple: the chances were there, the finishing was not.

AZ carved Sunderland open often enough. The patterns were good, the opportunities clear. Yet the scoreboard stayed stubbornly against them. Ten minutes from time came the moment that still gnawed at everyone in Alkmaar colours: Mexx Meerdink through on goal, the equaliser begging to be scored.

He hesitated.

Instead of pulling the trigger early, Meerdink took an extra touch, waited that fraction too long and hit his shot against the outstretched leg of Robin Roefs. A huge chance, gone. For Boulahrouz, watching in the Ziggo Sport studio, it was unforgivable at this level.

“At this level, at least one of them has to go in,” he said, looking back on AZ’s pile of missed opportunities.

He zoomed in on Meerdink’s late miss. The finish, he argued, summed up the problem. Too soft. Too safe. “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,” Boulahrouz said. Theo Janssen, sitting alongside him, had already framed it in one word: killer. A striker has to become one.

For Boulahrouz, that’s not just a nice phrase. It’s a requirement, especially for a young forward with ambitions beyond AZ. “Especially if he wants to get to the Netherlands national team. Then these are the chances in which you can distinguish yourself.”

The delay before the shot infuriated him most. “Delaying it once more, taking another touch, that means you are no longer quite set yourself. As a result, you can no longer strike it the way you want. This is simply wasting a hundred per cent chance,” he said, irritation clear. In his eyes, the issue went beyond one moment. “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 did not hide from the criticism. He admitted his own shortcomings in front of the cameras, aware that the night had slipped away from him and his team. “I think at certain moments I still lost the ball a little too easily, but I also had a number of good moments. The point for my development is that I have to keep doing it consistently,” he said.

On the decisive miss, he was just as blunt as his critics. “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 think that level of self-reflection would buy him some sympathy. Not from Theo Janssen. The former midfielder listened to Meerdink’s assessment and bristled.

“Interesting. He has the feeling he still played quite a decent match. He is quite satisfied,” Janssen said. His advice was sharp and direct: rewatch the game, properly. “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’s verdict cut to the core of the debate around Meerdink. Technically, there is plenty to like. “He is a very enjoyable footballer, he is technically refined, has all the attributes to be a good player,” Janssen admitted. But talent alone does not win European matches.

“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,” Janssen concluded.

For AZ, the story of Sunderland away was not just about a narrow 1-0 defeat. It was about a young striker standing at a crossroads: stay tidy, talented, and frustratingly incomplete — or turn those brutal words from the studio into the edge that defines his season.