Kees Kist: "AZ will be top for years to come"
Tuesday 10 March 2009
AZ Alkmaar are 14 points away from
the second league title in the club's history and no
one is doubting that the team of Louis van Gaal will
lift the Championship shield in a few weeks time.
Kees Kist, living legend of AZ,
predicts that the Noord-Holland side will keep dominating
the Eredivisie in the years to come.
"AZ have a stable organization
with professional people leading it. Even when Louis
were to leave at the end of his contract he'll leave
something behind for others to build on. When this squad
can be kept together and some more experienced players
can be brought in AZ can be at the top for years to
come," says Kist.
The 56-year old from the town of
Steenwijk was pat of the rise and fall of the club in
the seventies and eighties.
The 1980-1981 season is written
in gold in the archives of the club.
Guided by Georg Kessler AZ’67
was virtually unbeatable as they celebrated the championship
five games from the end of the season and later also
won the Cup.
The Dirk Scheringa of those days
was called Klaas Molenaar.
The businessman's aim was to make
AZ’67 Dutch Champions and he was prepared to spend
big.
But after achieving his dream Molenaar
wanted some return from his investments and sold many
of his top players.
Kist left for Paris Saint-Germain
and saw how AZ fell back.
"We could have been successful
with AZ in Europe, but there were other things going
on at the moment. As a Dutch player you had to go abroad
to make some money."
But Kist is not afraid of such
a scenario now.
"Scheringa is not a may fly.
He will want to keep the club together. Current AZ only
lacks some experience. It was obvious in the Cup game
against AZ. In our days we had the ability to defend
a 1-0 lead. This team can't yet do that."
The former goal scorer - European
top scorer with 30 goals in 1979 - started a career
as a competitive fisher, battling it out with players
such as Theo Lucius, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Youri Mulder
at the waterside.
As coach he led a number of amateur
clubs.
Kist has one dream left though.
"I would love to train the
forwards at AZ. Because there is some work to do there.
Look at Pellé. He's not doing very well is he?
He's lacking what all good strikers should have: a sense
for the goal. Dembélé is the same: a great
player but little efficiency. I don't see the same drive
to score goals. I have scored goals of which I didn't
know afterwards how I got them in the back of the net.
What I did was anticipate the situation. Perhaps I can
teach them that."
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