体坛英语新闻：Van Basten to be new coach of AZ

THE HAGUE, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Marco van Basten reached a verbal agreement to be the next coach of AZ, the Alkmaar based club announced on Friday.

The 49-year-old Van Basten will sign a deal starting on July 1 this year until mid-2016. He will succeed Dick Advocaat, who started his second spell at the club in October last year. Advocaat will finish the current season, in which AZ are on seventh position with two regular match rounds remaining.

Van Basten began his coaching career at the reserves team of Ajax in 2003 and from 2004 he was coach of the Dutch national team for four years, leading 'Oranje' at the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2008. After that he was coach at Ajax for the 2008/2009 season and in 2012 he returned as coach of sc Heerenveen.

At Heerenveen Van Basten had two decent seasons, finishing eighth in his first year. Currently Heerenveen are sixth in the Eredivisie.