The Amsterdam Tournament - and then it'll be for real...

This is our dress rehearsal.

K.

Jaap Stam is fit for the Amsterdam Tournament games. Laurent Delorge, on the other hand, is not. He picked up an Achilles injury in Scotland and will miss the tourney.

During yesterday night's press conference at the Amsterdam Hilton, Henk ten Cate pointed out that the Amsterdam Tournament is a "good test" and that he sees the importance for Ajax to present themselves to Amsterdam crowd in a good way, but the main objective is "to stay injury-free": "To us, it's all about the Champions League qualifiers, so we will take no unnecessary risks."

Kick-off against Atlético: tonight at 20:45 CET.

K.

I dont know about you guy's but Atletico Madrid give me the creep`s, they are very strong this season after a lot off good buy's and they should make a push towards the spanish league title....I font know if Ajax are up to the task (especially after Falkirk).

Anyways im excited too watch my first game off the new season !!!

Looking forward to tonights live game on Sky.Arsenal on at moment.I notice the crowd is growing. Arsenal are actually playing 2 englishmen which is novelty .

1-0 Ajax.

Gabri 46'.

2-0 Ajax

Sneijder 59'.

Omg beautifull goal by Sneijder. Amazing. Ajax is playing quick football, really great to see this.

Yeah, but they couldn't beat Falkirk, so they're fucked.

2-0 Ajax, full time.

Gabri with a red in the 90th. That sounds like a boneheaded move.

Boneheaded being the operative. Gabri elbowed Simao Sabrosa in the face right in front of the ref.

Solid performance ... very satisfied

Some quick remarks....

1) Kennedy was fantastic, i really like what he can do on the right side, very good buy.

2) Stunning goal by Sneijder, really doesent surprise me though....he's top class.

3) Ajax seemed to play in that "false" left wing type formatión with Urby playing wide, we really need a left winger.

4) Ogararu is very solid on the right....Colin is clumsy on the left.

5) Good to see Stam back in action

6)Dumb foul by Gabri....wont cost him much though ( i hope).

Nice work lads....next up is Lazio....then it's business as usual.

First , great result. Five points in the modified scoring system. I imagine some of the result is down to Ajax being further along in their pre-season training than Atletico , but 2:0 against solid Spanish opposition is a fine result. Red for Gabri? I'm glad he plays with emotion , but .... WTF? Note to Gabri : please get the red cards out of your system before the 12th or the CL qualifier. Someone please tell me the red card is for the Arsenal match and won't be carried over to the 11th due to some silly subsection of some little known KNVB code.

About Sneijder's beauty , that noise we all hear is someone in Valencia starting the presses to print another story .

Haha im glad gabri wacked simao simply cause i hate that chubby ass.
but it was clumsy, so chill gabby.

good game from ajax, colin was unimpressive on the left, or anywhere. huntelaar was somewhat quiet, but urby showed good composure.

bring on the gunners, 5 pts v.s 5 pts

i think that ogararu was weak in the second half
and colin had a better game than against rangers
But whats up with ten cate ? why didnt he let some of the yongsters
play a few minutes? and what about urzaiz?

I'm guessing it is because he wants to get the first team ready for the crucial CL qualifier coming up.

Sure ... but im talking about 15-20 minutes
and the subs have to be also ready ( especially Goosens on the left )

Urzaiz is injured.

I expected Goossens to play, maybe against Arsenal

Yeah i would like too see Ajax play in the classic 4-3-3 or at least play with two wingers as usual...

Are goals anywhere? Will they be on ultrasuid? :hupajax.gif:

I don't if they appear on ultrasuid, but if I'm right, Ajax.nl has free videos on the site. Including Ajax - Athletico.

Didn't Rooney get a red at last year's tournament and have to miss some premiership games? Ferguson was so pissed he said Man Ure would never participate again.

Then let's use him in his natural position...he's a Central Defender..not a full back.....!!!

Some thoughts from em on last nights game. I was especially watching our new signings so this is a bit biased (for/against) them.....

The most impressive of the three newbies who played I thought was Rommedahl who came on at half time. He certainly looked quick and aware from what I could see, some good runs with and without the ball - one that sticks in the head ended with a free kick as Madrid obviously didn't know what else to do with him.....

Colin looked quite anonymous to me tbh, after a while I sort of forgot he was there but at the start when I did notice him he looked a little nervous, lacking in assurance and seemed very quick to pass the ball away. I suppose it would have helped if he'd played in position though....

Mitchell Donald came on at 75 mins, replacement for Huntelaar. Didn't see much of him after that but I suppose 15 mins isn't really long to impress.

As for the rest, Steks had a good game, a couple of good saves but he wasn't terribly troubled by Atletico that much. Sneijder got one of his trade mark screamers, absolute belter of a goal that deserved a much better stage (the attendance at the Areana was very disapointing - even worse for the Arsenal game which I saw most of and it did start to fill up but still very very low).

I actually had Gabri down for my man of the match, right up till the 90th minute. he was all over the place, involved in all parts of the pitch and scored a good goal but then had a absolute bonehead moment in the last minute. I can only assume that there's some histopry between him and Atletico from Spain as can't think what else would cause him to do that. It was right on full time and right over the other side of the pitch from where I was sitting so I didn't even see it properly (and that he was sent off) until the TV this morning but the ref didn't have an awful lot of choice. In fact I think Maduro could have gone earlier on for a really bad looking challenge so the ref was probably being as lenient as he could.

btw, I don't know if you could see on TV but the kids in my section were very impressed with the re-inforced plastic-coated paper-plane material, kindly left on each seat by the sponsors LG. By the end of both halves, the pitchside was covered in them. My guess is that it'll be back to the plastic flags anytime soon, certainly for the "proper" games......

Gabri is banned for four friendlies. At least it isnt as bad as Rooney's punishment last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vpjUq7rTh8