The Eredivisie presents its starkest possible contrast on Sunday as bottom-placed Cambuur host league leaders AZ Alkmaar, a gulf of 17 places and 6 points separating sides moving in opposite directions. Cambuur have taken 0 points from 2 matches, conceding 7 goals and scoring just 1, while AZ sit top with a perfect record of 2 wins from 2, 6 scored and only 1 conceded. The visitors arrive with an excellent weighted form score of 8.6 out of 10 against Cambuur's poor 2.6, a six-point gap that captures the chasm in current performance.

Cambuur's start to the campaign could scarcely have been worse. They opened with a 0-4 home defeat to Excelsior before losing 1-3 at Fortuna Sittard, and across their last 5 matches in all competitions they have won just 1, lost 4, scored 4 and conceded 12. They have kept a single clean sheet in that span and failed to score only once, suggesting fragility at the back rather than bluntness in attack. Their season profile shows 16.2 shots per game and 4.2 on target from a 5-match sample, with 1.73 expected goals per outing and a 58.6 percent possession share, yet they are shipping 3.50 goals per Eredivisie fixture and sit rooted to the foot of the table.

AZ Alkmaar, by contrast, have been ruthless. They beat ADO Den Haag 2-0 at home in their opener, then travelled to Utrecht and won 4-1, and their last 5 across all competitions reads 5 wins from 5, 17 scored and just 3 conceded. They have scored in all 5 of those matches and kept 3 clean sheets, a run that included a 4-0 Super Cup victory over PSV Eindhoven. From a 3-match competitive sample they are generating 19.3 shots per game and 7.3 on target, and they have conceded only 0.50 goals per Eredivisie fixture while scoring 3.00, a goals profile that dwarfs Cambuur's.

The head to head record over the last 10 meetings shows AZ Alkmaar with 6 wins to Cambuur's 0, plus 4 draws. In the 5 itemised encounters, AZ have won 3 and drawn 2, including victories by 3-1 at Cambuur in October 2021, 1-0 at Cambuur in August 2022 and 2-1 at home in February 2023. The other two were goalless stalemates. Across all 10 meetings, both teams have scored in 5 and the fixture has gone over 2.5 goals in 4, an average of 1.9 goals per meeting that feels modest given AZ's current attacking output.

Cambuur have failed to score in only 10 percent of their sample and have found the net in 4 of their last 5, so a shutout is not guaranteed, but AZ have conceded just once in two league matches and kept clean sheets in 33 percent of their broader sample. The visitors' superiority in every measurable category, from league position to form rating to goals per game, points to a comfortable away win. The question is whether Cambuur can exploit home advantage and their own decent expected goals figure to nick a consolation, or whether AZ's defensive solidity and relentless scoring form deliver another emphatic margin.