Kees Smit admits he was at fault after AZ's 1-2 defeat to Juventus in the Europa League. "I actually came back a little too soon," the Alkmaar side's attacking midfielder says of his recent injury.
"It's a lesson for me that perhaps I need to be more honest with myself and the physios," Smit told Algemeen Dagblad. "But I just want to play as much as possible, and that's a bit of a trap."
After recovering from a groin injury, Smit returned to the Netherlands Under-21s. He started against Norway (0-0) and Slovenia (a 2-4 win), contributing a goal and an assist in the second match. An injury then kept him out of the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina that secured a European Championship place.
The AZ player spent the next month on the sidelines with fresh injury problems. "If it doesn't feel right, you're better off missing one match, or two, but I wanted to help the Netherlands Under-21s. But because of that I also missed some great matches, and I'm really disappointed about that. Feyenoord and Ajax, I'm still gutted about those."
Against Juventus, Leeroy Echteld brought Smit on in the 62nd minute. "I was really looking forward to playing football again, and matches like this always give you energy. I'm very happy to be playing again, and that needs to continue."
Smit and fellow substitute Elijah Dijkstra helped AZ threaten Juventus regularly in the closing stages. "Yes, they came on and did well. But I don't think things only really changed at the end. I think we played well in the second half," said a satisfied Echteld.
"Of course, the substitutions opened up the match a bit more and those lads brought more energy," the AZ coach said. He would have liked his team to play with more maturity in the first half. "During the match, you feel that you need to step it up a notch or two. Eventually we managed to do that, and then you could see that we can compete with them."