Greg . 1 day ago

AZ swat away unrecognisable Ilves in Conference League second-leg stomping

AZ left nothing up to fate in the second leg of their Conference League second-round matchup against Ilves, turning the tie around with an imperious 5-0 home win.

AZ lost the first leg 4-3 in the Finnish city of Tampere, and manager Maarten Martens called the way his side moved toward the game "unacceptable" after committing error after error on the defensive front.

In Alkmaar, Martens changed his side in two places, giving Alexandre Penetra and Sven Mijnans the nod over Maxim Dekker and Peer Koopmeiners, both of whom made costly errors in Tampere.

Ilves, meanwhile, fielded three different names as opposed to last week's win.

Andre Raymond, Joona Veteli, and Anton Popovitch obtained handed starts instead of Vincent Ulundu, Otto Tiitinen, and Maksim Stjopin.

Player ratings for AZ-IlvesBetopickAfter showcasing their will to turn the tie around in the first 20 minutes, AZ ran riot in the twenty minutes that pursued.

Troy Parrott opened the scoring easily in the 22nd minute, and the Irishman doubled his side's lead four minutes later with a tap-in.

Ernest Poku made it 3-0 in identical fashion in the 36th minute, before right-support Denzo Kasius put the 4-0 on the board in the 42nd minute by accidentally ricocheting the ball into Otso Virtanen's goal.

Virtanen prevented AZ from setting a monster score in the first half, expertly saving tricky efforts from Kees Smit and Sven Mijnans in the first half, which AZ dominated with a staggering xG of 4.

02, as opposed to Ilves's 0.

07.

AZ took the foot off the throttle in the second half, but not before threatening to score the 5-0 right from kick-off.

Ernest Poku could not outplay Virtanen, however, and the scoreboard remained unchanged.

Poku and Parrott obtained close to the 5-0 again a couple of minutes later, but it wasn't until the 74th minute that AZ scored their fifth.

Mees de Wit stood on the receiving terminate of a 1-2 with Mexx Meerdink, after which the left-support safely slotted the ball behind Virtanen in the 74th minute.

After Meerdink struck the post in the 77th minute and Penetra the crossbar two minutes later, AZ, who were up 8-4 on aggregate, saw out the game with a world of ease, condemning Ilves to another season without European football.

The Alkmaar side will confront either Dungannon Swifts from Northern Ireland or FC Vaduz from Liechtenstein in the third round of the UEFA Conference League qualifying phase.

Those games will be played on August 7th and 14th.

View all the match statistics on Betopick.