Editing AZ Alkmaar (section)

===1972–1985: Molenaar years===
Partially through the hiring of expensive foreign players, the new club soon acquired large debts. In 1972, the Molenaar brothers bailed it out and invested heavily in the club, to the point that AZ '67 were successful in the late 1970s and early '80s, regularly playing European football from 1977 to 1982 while also winning three [[KNVB Cup]]s over that period.

After four close league campaigns, AZ finally became [[Eredivisie|Dutch champions]] in [[1980–81 Eredivisie|1981]], becoming the only team other than the "big three" of Ajax, {{Lang|nl|[[Feyenoord]]|italic=no}} and [[PSV Eindhoven|PSV]] to do so in a 44-year period spanning from 1965 to 2009 (when AZ once again won the league title). They won the title with overwhelming power, winning 27 of 34 matches and only losing once, while scoring a club record 101 goals and conceding just 30. That same season, AZ reached the [[1981 UEFA Cup Final|final of the UEFA Cup]], losing 5–4 on aggregate to [[Ipswich Town F.C.|Ipswich Town]]. The next year, in the [[1981–82 European Cup|European Cup]], they lost in the second round 3–2 on aggregate to [[Liverpool F.C.|Liverpool]].

[[Georg Keßler]] was AZ's manager over most of these years (1978–82), while star players included: [[Kees Kist]], the club's highest ever goalscorer with 212 goals and the first ever Dutchman to win the [[European Golden Shoe|European Golden Boot]] in 1979 when he scored 34 goals in a season; [[Jan Peters (footballer, born 1954)|Jan Peters]], who played 120 matches for AZ during this period scoring 30 goals from midfield; and [[Hugo Hovenkamp]], who played 239 matches in defence for AZ from 1975 to 1983, as well as receiving 31 caps for the [[Netherlands national football team|Netherlands national team]] from 1977 to 1983 and playing each match in [[UEFA Euro 1980]] while an AZ player. Additional stars included [[John Metgod]], who spent six years at AZ playing 195 matches as a defender, scoring 26 goals including a goal against Ipswich Town in the final of the UEFA Cup. Like Hovenkamp, Metgod was also included in the Dutch squad for Euro 1980. Meanwhile, Danish forward [[Kristen Nygaard (footballer)|Kristen Nygaard]] spent ten years at AZ, scoring 104 goals in 363 matches between 1972 and 1982.