Joel van den Ban

Joel van den Ban arrived at AZ's academy in 2016, having started out at Koninklijke HFC, and stayed through the full climb to the club's reserve side, Jong AZ. By May 2025 the club rewarded that progression with a contract running to 2028 — not a transfer, but confirmation that the forward had earned a place in the pipeline he had spent nine years working through.

His first-team involvement remains limited to the Eerste Divisie with Jong AZ rather than AZ's Eredivisie squad. The step up came gradually: a single appearance in his debut season in 2023/24, then ten games and a goal the year after. The breakthrough arrived more recently, with a run of 34 appearances and seven goals that marked his most productive campaign yet, and he has continued to feature regularly since.

Van den Ban has also worked his way through the Dutch youth set-up, representing the Netherlands from under-16 to under-17, under-18 and under-19 level, scoring at both under-17 and under-18. He has not yet been capped by the senior national side.

Joel van den Ban remains, for now, a player defined by development rather than a single breakthrough moment — a forward built through Jong AZ's ranks whose next test is turning consistent minutes in the second tier into a case for AZ's first team.