At first sight you might think: AZ champions?? They almost relegated last season! And that's true. What is also true is that I actually think Ajax has the biggest chance of being champion in the 2008/2009 season. So why go for AZ when we haven't even spoke about PSV, by far the most succesful team in the past years? First of all, AZ has an advantage over the other top teams in Holland because they don't play European football next year so they will be much fitter in the league. Also, last year AZ was tipped by many analists to claim the title after their great 2006/2007 season in which they gave away the title on the last day. This year many things went wrong and AZ was extremely unlucky. They finished in 11th place, while the complete team expected to qualify for Champions League football. Main problem was scoring goals and that was because Koevermans and Arveladze left AZ and their replacements were very disappointing. On top of this, two of their best midfielders Schaars and Martens were injured most of the season. Interesting fact is that altough they finished 11th, they were in top-3 of total created chances and total corners. Next season AZ will welcome back Jeremain Lens, a striker who did extremely well the last few months of his loan to NEC. Also Van Gaal's team bought some other players to strengthen the team and possibly the squad will be added with some more players. As I said before, I don't regard AZ to be main favourite to claim the title so I expected a quote around 10. I was therefore very surprised to see AZ @51.00 at Bwin. This quote is way too high and therefore I think it is worth a shot.