Juventus end AZ Alkmaar's long unbeaten home run in Europe
Teun Koopmeiners scored against his brother's boyhood club and Randal Kolo Muani struck again as Juventus held on for a 2-1 win in Alkmaar despite facing more shots and far less of the ball.
Juventus won 2-1 away to AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League on Wednesday, ending a run of 17 unbeaten home fixtures in UEFA competition for the Dutch club that stretched back to October 2023, Football Italia reported.
The result followed a 2-0 win over Napoli at the weekend and kept the Bianconeri unbeaten in this season's Europa League, where they had already taken two wins and drawn 2-2 with Rennes.
Luciano Spalletti picked his side from a squad stripped by injuries. Weston McKennie joined Kenan Yildiz, Manuel Locatelli, Nico Gonzalez, Francisco Conceicao, Zeki Celik, Khephren Thuram and Kamil Grabara on the treatment table, and Jeff Ekhator was added to the club's UEFA squad list as cover.
AZ had their own absentees in Jeroen Zoet, Jizz Hornkamp, Wouter Goes and Stije Resink, though Kees Smit returned to the squad for the first time since September 20. The hosts arrived having lost their last two Eredivisie matches without scoring.
A homecoming Teun Koopmeiners chose not to celebrate
The occasion carried a personal subplot. Teun Koopmeiners came through the AZ academy before making his career elsewhere, and he lined up against his younger brother Peer, who captained the Dutch side. A pre-match banner in the stadium showed the pair as children.
When Teun Koopmeiners swept in Juventus's opening goal in the 19th minute, converting a pull-back from Randal Kolo Muani with the inside of his left boot, he did not celebrate against his brother's team. It was a small gesture that said something about the weight of the fixture for him personally, separate from the tactical story of the match.
Kolo Muani's pressing forced the second goal
Kolo Muani had already gone close with an angled drive that skimmed the far post before he turned provider for the opener, flicking the ball over a defender to work space down the right. His role in the second goal was different in kind: a high press on Mees de Wit forced the AZ defender into an error, and after Nick Woltemade returned the loose ball, Kolo Muani bent a left-footed finish into the far corner.
That sequence mattered beyond the scoreline. Juventus's press did not generate volume chances all evening, but it created the single moment that effectively settled the game, with AZ unable to play out from the back under pressure in a position Juventus had clearly targeted.
AZ dominated territory but could not convert it
The match statistics told a story at odds with the result. AZ had 56% of possession to Juventus's 44% and out-shot the visitors 18 to 9, yet managed only three shots on target to Juventus's two. The gap between shot volume and shot quality explains how a team that tilted the game territorially still finished on the losing side.
AZ's best spells came in bursts rather than sustained pressure. Kerim Alajbegovic struck the crossbar from just inside the box, and Dave Kwakman forced a save from Guglielmo Vicario with a deflected effort, but neither chance arrived from a controlled passage of build-up play.
Juventus, for their part, also wasted good positions. Federico Gatti sprinted the length of the pitch on a counter-attack but overhit his final pass to Kolo Muani, a reminder that transition chances for the visitors were there to be taken more cleanly.
AZ eventually broke through in the 88th minute when Ayoub Oufkir dispossessed Lloyd Kelly near the touchline, releasing Elijah Dijkstra down the right to cross for Mexx Meerdink, who tapped in from close range. The goal lifted the home crowd and the hosts pushed hard for an equaliser in stoppage time.
They thought they had one when the ball ended up in the net again, but Meerdink was ruled offside from the header that forced a save from Vicario, so De Wit's rebound did not stand. Smit, introduced from the bench, had already seen one effort charged down by Kelly and sent another over the bar from 12 yards, while AZ also had penalty appeals turned down after Dijkstra went to ground under pressure from Kelly.
Juventus saw out the closing minutes, including a late Smit free kick that cleared the area without finding a teammate, to secure a result that stands as one of the more disruptive away performances in this season's competition given AZ's record on home soil.