The traditional climax of the pre-season campaign, ladies and gentlemen: the Amsterdam Tournament is coming closer!

This year's participants: Inter, Porto, Man United and of course... the mighty AFC Ajax Amsterdam. :yes:

I would have liked to play FC Porto (because it's Co's team and we never played them at the Amsterdam Tourney) but we're playing the two teams we've already played at the tourney before: Inter and Man-U, starting with the Italians on Friday evening!

Oh yeah: you know how the tournament works by now... 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw, but also 1 point for every goal scored.

K.

Will anyone be over for this game?

I know my very good mate Carcajou will be... Anyone else?

I'm going to give it a miss myself. I'll be going on holiday the next morning, so I'm gonna watch it on TV while packing my suitcase! :eusa_dance:

K.

Looks like the tournament will be televised in the U.S. on Setanta Sports channel. Yippee!

That's great news... Is that channel available everywhere in the U.S.?

All info is more than welcome. If it's more than just a local/regional thing (only in your state or whatever) we'll put it up on Ajax USA (TV page and an announcement on the homepage).

K.

Setanta is a closed circuit PPV-channel.

But available everywhere in the U.S.?

K.

It is available to any DirecTV (satellite service) subscriber as far as I know. It costs an additional $11/month or so, but it has been worth it for me as it shows all kinds of soccer (Bundesliga, Coca-Cola Championship, Greek League, and now Eredivisie) as well as top-flight northern and southern hemisphere rugby.

In fact, I won't. Biggest blunder of my life this morning (I left my bag in the suburban train -including cellphone, clothes, personal belongings etc.-), so I will try to sort things out. It really sucks to be a brainless monkey...

I'll be in NL all next week from Saturday Ko - a little holiday with my fiance (she's starting to appreciate Amsterdam a bit more now :yes: ). Provided I can get a ticket I'll be going to the match. If anyone's up for a beer it'd be great to meet up. Send me a PM and we can arrange something :xyxthumbs: .

Two hours to go. In today's issue of de Volkskrant (and on Ajax.nl, too, by the way) HTC admitted that the timing of this tournament is a bit unfortunate for Ajax. They really want to present themselves to the ArenA crowd and make a good impression (and it's on TV in loads of countries, too), but the first Copenhagen game is coming closer and you just can't play three top fixtures in six days' time. That's why HTC will not play the best line-up. Ajax will have to be careful and take it easy.

Which is a shame, but I guess every Ajax fan will understand...

K.

Good ball possesion so far but not enough danger in attack. As usual this is another example of an italian team that sends most of their players to defend and when they have a chance to score they do it.
I've seen lots of hard work from Ogararu and Gabri so far. Huntelaar is not getting any balls and Vertonghen needs to calm down a bit. I expect some changes for this second half.
GO AJAX :headbang:

Random thoughts:

Stekelenberg's a clown isn't he? That's something that's not going to improve before Tuesday.

Ogararu looks like a classic Ajax right back, good on the ball going forward, but uncomfortable when he actually has to defend.

Nobody playing on the left at all, Urby doesn't want to come past the half way line, and Perez seems to be playing along side Huntelaar. Hopefully Rosenberg can redress this inbalance in the second half.

Things improved with Rosales on the right and Rosenberg gave a bit more power to the attack. What a great goal by Sneijder by the way, terrific shot.
I think this game was very important for us. The first conclusion I came up with is that Stam is our key player. He's got everything we needed in defense and he is also very dangerous in attack. Second, we need to improve our attack, Huntelaar didn't get any clear chances, it was very difficult for our players to serve him with good balls.
I hope we have a better game tomorrow. I saw some good things tonight but this team needs more time to improve some stuff.

I like our defense .
Vermaelen and Stam looked pretty solid .
Ajax dominated midfield when Maduro got in .

Vertonghen was fine ,but was with no experience ,and too slow ,In my opinion .

Stam :worshippy:

The amount of experience this guy will bring to this team this year goes beyond words.

Overall, some good moments in the game and some poor ones to boot. Given that the team have THE game in the back of their minds next week probably also didnt help procedings. I do think though our passing to the most was fast esp in the second half.

Looking forward to some goals tomorrow.

I was impresed with the chemisty showed by Stam and Vermealen, they seem to complement each other very well, the midfield got alot better once Maduro came in, Sneijder's blast was just......... you understand. I really did not like Perez play today, he was nonexistant hope he gets better.

Tomorrow we will probably see the likes of Heitinga,Lindenbergh,Poepon,Grygera, Kron Dehli,Babel etc

Sneijder, Stam , Huntelaar, Gabri will be rested for the Copenhagen encounter. I really dont expect us too win the tournament just hope we play well and keep on getting in shape.

PD: I'm off to Hawai for a couple of weeks, on my way back i'll spend a couple of day's in LA, if the second leg is played on one of those day's i would love to watch it with some off you guy's. I'll stay in touch.

See ya people ;)

Ajax looked very solid and smooth for the most part.

Stekelenburg didnt see much action and was unlucky to have conceded.

Stam and Vermaelen were terrific, solid and out muscled the likes of Martins.

Oga and Emanuelson were in good shape, nice attacks and passes.

Everyone up front looked in good shape but Huntelaar and Perez weren't much in the game.

MOTM was Sneijder tbfh

Match report is up on Ajax USA. (I'm no Menno, keep in mind.)

I think Poepon is not with the group .

"Stekelenburg didnt see much action and was unlucky to have conceded."

I disagree, it was a straightforward goalkeeping blunder.

The defence (with the exception of Stam) looked naive and chaotic, I thought.

Early days yet though.