Football Season Guide

AZ U21 can look back on another pretty strong campaign last season as they occasionally played some scintillating football and delighted the locals, scoring four goals or more on four occasions during the season and getting more than 60 goals overall during the year. Now the aim for the Alkmaar side is to build another squad that looms pretty cohesive, potent and expansive in attack and once again be the best-performing of the four youth sides in the division. Experienced coach Lee-Roy Echteld will not change too much in his approach compared to last season and will want his men to play with aggression and dynamism and not shirk away against the bigger sides in the division. There have been some departures from the squad during the summer, as expected, but overall quite a lot of the ever-presents from last season should stick around and this will ensure some sort of continuity. Some new players from the academy are hopeful of finding a way through and being given a chance to shine, with the likes of Elijah Diijkstra, Japer Herzog and Tomas Johansson among those with the biggest chance to do so.