The Grygera thread starts with some bad news...

It appears that the Czech defender sustained a little tear in his hamstring during yesterday's training, and that he will be out for up to four weeks. Which means he will be unavailable for the Auxerre games.

Other than the average Ajax supporter I feel that this is a really bad thing. Grygera is not highly rated by most of the fans, but I think he's a great defender and in my opinion we finally had a top notch defense with Grygera and Escudé. Both Heitinga and De Jong are shit defensively, and to be honest they just can't crack it on an international level (and probably never will). This will cost us goals, for sure.

K.

Ko. I'll agree with you. Both defenders Escude and Grygera are very underestimated. But very nescessary as the only two defenders.

The season was only a couple of weeks underway when the rest of the team already knew that they could only score the second most beautiful goal of the season (maybe that's why they collectively decided not to score at all... thanks for that, Zlatan... :D )

But anyway: we now have the second most beautiful Ajax goal of the season!

F#CKING HELL, what a volley! What a stunner. It went in right in front of the empty away section; too bad I wasn't in there to see it slam home. Absolutely flippin' amazing goal. Way to go, Gryga!

(does anyone know if there's a video of it?)

K.

ask and ye shall receive - http://members.optushome.com.au/ss-jan/ ... ax-2-2.avi

Yeah, that's Super Shota... But for some reason I can't view those. My players says 'codec dowloading error' - and I don't know what it is.

K.

try right click on the link, then "save as" - then you can try to play the clip in WMP - you may not have the right quick time version for it - i normally use VLC player, wich you can download free and plays every codec/file type

The video format is MPEG-4 and the sound is MP3. I guess the sound codec is not a problem so it means that this a video codec issue. Do you use Windows or a Mac ?

Windows...

K.

OK. So my 0.02$ :

Get MPlayer for Windows here :

http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releas ... 050315.zip

Then unzip it where you want

Then you drag the video on the executable file mplayer.exe (alternatively you can "open with...." and choose the MPlayer executable, or create a shortcut on your desktop and drag the file on the shortcut).

MPlayer can play EVERY single video on Earth, isn't bloated with any spy-ware, has excellent performance, is FREE and OPEN SOURCE.

HOWEVER it has an incovenient for the newbie : it doesn't have a nice graphical interface. It isn't much of a problem if you know the basic key shortcuts :

f : Toggle full screen
space : Pause
<- or -> : seek backward/forward 10 seconds
up or down : seek backward/forward 1 minute
q : quit

If you have ANY question you're welcome.

After an amazing volley, a decisive pass. The last two goals are Grygera made.

Ummm...?

The long pass from the back was from Anastasiou and the one to tap it to Maduro was Hatem Trabelsi... Don't think Grygera was involved... Or was he?

K.

No.

well, he should have been :blush: . Television you know. My only regret is that Anastasiou did not score yesterday. It would have been perfect. He is a smart guy, and he proved it again yesterday. And it was wise from the coach to let him and Boukhari in.

Just glad Fox Soccer Channel didn't lose the plot as they usually do.Saw the goals last night and replay today.Cracking good stuff!!!

Interesting statistic: without Zdenek Grygera Ajax conced 1.5 times as many goals as with Grygera... doesn't surprise me.

K.

SQD - Grygera is the winning ticket for the rest of the season and next year, no doubt about it.

Another one. With Grygera in the starting line up (33 games) Ajax never lost a game in de leauge

I think (not sure) that Grygera passed the ball to Anastasiou.

I'm sure he did

The yellow card Grygera picked up against Twente today was his 4th of the season. Which means he will be suspended for Sunday's home game against Utrecht.

K.

Perhaps time for Schilder to shine.

Ummm... no. May God forbid it. Our defense is shaky enough already. Vermaelen is a newbie, Heitinga is crap, Maduro is a good midfielder but a very vulnerable defender and Juanfran did not exactly have his best day in Enschede, either.

So, please, no newcomer in defense against Utrecht. Not a good idea.

K.

But I don't believe Trabelsi would be back?

Heitinga-Maduro-Vermaelen-Juanfran? :pukey:

Perhaps Lindenbergh or Emanuelson would take a spot in defence.

After yesterdays goal urby's confidence must be sky high, i think it would be wise to have him in the lineup next week.
With the lack of defenders we might play some 3-4-3 football ;)

Contract talks with Grygera scheduled for today...

It's only the 'first round', so I don't expect anything concrete to be announced today. But they're working on the extension of his deal. I hope he'll stay.

K.