AZ Alkmaar beat Heerenveen 9-1; Feyenoord fail to win again
AZ Alkmaar broke their record for biggest win in the Eredivisie on Saturday when they beat SC Heerenveen 9-1 at the AFAS stadium. Irish striker Troy Parrot scored four times for the Alkmaarders, who are second in the league table.
The first goal of the match came after four minutes. Maarten Martens's side had made a very energetic start and were given their reward after four minutes when Sven Mijnans hit a shot in off the inside of the post.
Despite the final score, the home side's start was not entirely dominant. Heerenveen equalized in the 19th minute when Luuk Brouwers headed a free kick into the net.
AZ retook the lead four minutes later. Heerenveen's defensive line was brutally exposed as Ibrahim Sadiq ran through before laying the ball off to Parrot, who tapped it home to get his first Eredivisie goal for his new club.
Heerenveen started pushing for the equalizer. A header from Ion Nicolaescu was acrobatically kept out by AZ goalkeeper Rome-Jayden Owusu-Oduro before a long shot by Ilias Sebaoui rattled the crossbar.
Sadiq and Parrot combined again shortly after halftime for AZ's third goal. Sadiq used his blistering pace to sprint past his defender before playing a low, hard cross into the box, which Parrot hit low and hard past Heerenveen keeper Mickey van der Hart.
This was the start of Robin van Persie's side's capitulation. Two minutes after the last goal, Parrot swept home his third of the game after a poor giveaway by Van der Hart.
Parrot scored his fourth and last goal of the match in the 56th minute. Again, the striker was given plenty of space by the Heerenveen defence, placing the ball into the bottom corner to make it 5-1.
Sadiq got his deserved goal in the 72nd minute. The Ghanian winger took a brilliant pass from Mijnans in his stride and side-footed it home.
Crowd favorite Mexx Meerdink came on for Parrot and showed that he, too, can score goals, smashing a shot into the roof of the net from a difficult angle to make it 7-1 in the 75th minute.
A header from youngsters Kristijan Belic and a tap-in from Zico Buurmeester finished the scoring off at 9-1, leaving AZ two points behind league leaders PSV in the league table in second.
Feyenoord drew their third match in their first four games on Saturday as new manager Brian Priske continues to struggle with his start in Rotterdam.
The Rotterdammers broke the deadlock in the 33rd minute. Bart Nieuwkoop headed on a corner before the ball was deflected in via Groningen striker Thom van Bergen.
Igor Paixao headed the KNVB cup holders to a 2-0 lead in the 70th minute after a lot of chances were missed by both sides.
Groningen got their first goal back after 80 minutes played when Brynjólfur Darri Willumsson cut inside and curled a shot right into the far corner of the goal.
The fans in the Euroborg cheered wildly in injury when Willumsson got his second to level the game with a header into the far corner.
This ensured that Groningen are three points ahead of Feyenoord in third place. Priske is already feeling some pressure, with some Feyenoord fans criticizing the new Danish manager for a poor start. They are in fifth position.
The top spot is taken by last season's champions PSV, who beat NEC 2-0 on Saturday with two early goals from Luuk de Jong and Guus Til after NEC's Kodai Sano was issued a red card after just nine minutes.
