The Eredivisie European Playoff semi-finals took place on Thursday and below is a round up of all the action.
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AZ Alkmaar 4-1 Heerenveen
A first half hattrick from Mexx Meerdink helped AZ Alkmaar ease into the playoff final.
After three minutes, AZ were ahead with Sven Mijans setting up Meerdink to net after some poor goalkeeping from Mickey van der Hart.
Soon afterwards, a fine attack saw AZ ease through the Heerenveen defence and Meerdink then scored his second. The 21-year-old striker then completed his hattrick before the break with a header.
In the second half, Alexandre Penetra added a fourth before Ion Nicolaescu pulled one back for Heerenveen with a header.
AZ Alkmaar progresses to the final on Sunday with ease.
Twente 3-2 NEC Nijmegen AET
FC Twente overcame NEC Nijmegen despite playing most of the game with ten men.
The hosts got off to the perfect start when Michal Sadilek opened the scoring in the 16th minute.
It was one way traffic for the hosts but in the 40th minute, Sontje Hansen broke through only to be taken out by Alec Van Hoorenbeeck. A red card was shown and Twente were reduced to ten men.
After the break, NEC quickly equalised through Kodai Sano. Eight minutes later, Vito van Crooij put NEC ahead and it seemed the visitors were on course for victory.
However, Twente didn’t give up and they equalised when Sem Steijn was in the right place to score a rebound after Ricky van Wolfswinkels effort was saved.
The game went to extra time and Younes Taha fired Twente into a shock lead. NEC almost equalised but Calvin Verdonk’s strike hit the post.
Twente progresses to the final where they will take on AZ Alkmaar for a place in the Conference League.
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