MARTENS MOVES

Maarten Martens will not be playing for AZ Alkmaar from July onwards. He has made an away move. After the ongoing season, he will be a part of PAOK Salonika which is a Greek club.

The attacking midfielder who belongs to Belgium had been at Alkmaar since the last 7 years. He had signed for the club in 2006 after leaving RKC Waalwijk.

Martens played a total of 164 league games during his tenure at AFAS Stadion and found the net 34 times.

PAOK confirmed the signing of Martens by releasing a statement yesterday. That statement says, “The club has reached an agreement with Maarten Martens. The experienced player from Belgium who is currently playing in Netherlands for AZ Alkmaar will join the club at the start of July. He has been signed for a couple of years which means he will remain at Toumba Stadium till the middle of 2016.”

It’s hard to say whether Alkmaar’s decision to sell Martens at this point of time is right or wrong. They have clearly not secured as many points as they would have liked to in the Eredivisie this season and perhaps, most of the teams would not have let an experienced player go in such a situation, but, they reckoned that this was the right time for them to off load the Belgian player.

The Alkmaar fans would certainly not be pleased with the current position of their team in the Eredivisie points table. The Cheese Farmers have won just 7 out of the 18 matches that they have played in the Dutch top flight this season and they are slotted at no. 8 in the table at the moment. They will face NAC Breda in their next game on 18th of January.

Johannsson impresses Klinsmann and Altidore

Juergen Klinsmann, the manager of the United States football team and forward Jozy Altidore have praised Aron Johannsson,  the twenty three year old AZ Alkmaar striker who made a stunning thirty minutes cameo in Friday’s goalless match against Scotland. Most of the time, he played up front along with Altidore of Sunderland.

After the game, Juergen Klinsmann stated that the couple could now guide the attacking players together from the beginning of the match, suggesting that this could happen in Vienna on Tuesday against Austria.

Former German footballer Juergen Klinsmann told that this is something that they have been working on. Even from the start, when they have been introducing as a substitute player. He added that Aron Johannsson is fresh to their team and he is getting comfy in the group. And he assumes that everyone sees these traits of him. Therefore, it is good to see this development process. If they want to field him with Jozy from the start, that is an option. He has the confidence to carry out that role if they ask him to.

Jozy also felt that he could connect with Aron who is in a very good form in Holland. Till now, in this season, Aron had scored fourteen goals for his club AZ Alkmaar. Speaking to reporters, Altidore told that it is almost two years that he has told people about his quality. One could see from his touch that he is very comfortable in tight places.