AZ AlkmaarAZ Alkmaar is a club that was created by a business deal. On 10 May 1967 the brothers Cees Molenaar and Klaas Molenaar, ambitious local entrepreneurs, merged Alkmaar '54 with FC Zaanstreek, whose roots went back to 1910 and the Kooger Football Club. The new club was called AZ '67, short for Alkmaar Zaanstreek, and its first crest combined a tower taken from Alkmaar '54 with a windmill from Zaanstreek. The Molenaars signed a large number of foreign players to lift the club's status, and that gamble produced both the trophies and the debts that shaped its early history. The club is also known as the Cheese Farmers and plays in red and white.
The breakthrough came in the late 1970s under the German coach Georg Kessler, who led the side between 1977 and 1982. AZ won the KNVB Cup in 1978, and its team of that era was built around Kees Kist, the club's record goalscorer, together with Kristen Nygaard, Jan Peters, John Metgod, Hugo Hovenkamp and Willem van Hanegem. The peak was 1980–81, when AZ won its first league title, taking 27 wins from 34 matches, scoring 101 goals and losing only once, and added the cup to complete a double. Another cup followed in 1982, but the debts from the spending spree led to a decline that lasted for decades.
The same 1980–81 season produced the club's most memorable European run. AZ reached the final of the UEFA Cup and lost it 4–5 on aggregate to Ipswich Town, with Metgod among the scorers in the final. It remains the club's best result in Europe, and it is the story that connects the modern club to its original golden generation.
The second league title took 28 years to arrive. In 2008–09 AZ won the Eredivisie under Louis van Gaal, taking 80 points and finishing 11 clear of FC Twente. Mounir El Hamdaoui scored 23 league goals, and the title confirmed AZ as the only club outside the traditional big three of Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord to win the league twice in the modern era. Before that, AZ had lost the 2007 cup final to Ajax on penalties, 8–7. In 2013 it won the cup for the fourth time, beating PSV 2–1 in the final at De Kuip.
In Europe, AZ reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in 2004–05, beating Villarreal in the quarter-final before losing to Sporting. It returned to the last four in 2022–23 in the UEFA Europa Conference League, where it won a quarter-final against Anderlecht on penalties and lost the semi-final to West Ham United 1–3 on aggregate. Its home since 2006 is the AFAS Stadion in Alkmaar, which replaced the Alkmaarderhout, where the club had played since 1948.
The present fits that pattern of steady rather than flashy success. On 19 April 2026 AZ beat NEC 5–1 in the KNVB Cup final at De Kuip, winning the trophy for the fifth time a year after it had lost the previous final to Go Ahead Eagles on penalties. The win earned a place in the 2026–27 Europa League, adding another chapter to the history of a club that has always had to build its standing from the outside.
