Terrible news. I'm almost never emotional when an athlete dies, but this has me very sad.

Tom_ schreef:Now that I didn't know; I always assumed it was made in Italy... although Spain makes a lot more sense considering the landscape!

PS sorry to drift off topic but it's far more interesting than today's football

Maybe it should be called an Eastern instead?

Pretty comprehensive victory today (and at a decent hour for those of us in parts East, too!). Coordination between our center halves is somewhat worrying, and Sanogo or Milik will have to do better. Nonetheless, we couldn't really have asked for a better start to the 2015 - 2016 campaign.

What a great 1st half fantastic shot by El Ghazi and then 2 more ,not in the same league as the the first.Dijks looks good to me but we are pressing forward more although I am sure we will see more back passes and posession football in the 2nd. I feel like we started to get into that possession mod...

Gudelj set up the second goal and scored the third. Not a bad start to his Ajax career, imo. Still a couple of unsettled moments on defense and the ball is occasionally a hot potato in midfield, but overall we're the better team, even if 3-0 is a touch flattering. :onfire.gif: :onfire.gif: :onfire.g...

He was always a guy that I'd hoped would replace DeBoer if/when Frank leaves. I think he was thrown into a bad situation before he was ready when he took the Ajax job, but I'm still not a fan of Koeman as manager. Hopefully Danny will succeed.

Similarly, I lived in Greece during the Olympics and while it was a high point for them at the time, all the money the government spent on the Olympics contributed significantly to their situation today. Now, a lot of the stadia they built for the Olympics are sitting empty. There's a reason why onl...

Qatar have stated today that there has been zero deaths in the construction of the infrastructure.... As they say in English "You're having a laugh"........ It's a bit more insidious than that. They said that there were no deaths in the construction of World Cup stadia (which are still a long ways ...

Great news but he is still going to continue for 4 to 6 months until his replacement is voted in. Now they just need to overturn Qatar for 2022 . No way should aWC be played there.As for Russia maybe bribery in their bid but they are a proper football country and probably should have got aWC Consid...

I think discussion of the FIFA indictments is probably more appropriate here.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/zuric ... e-century/

@aveslacker - I agrre 100%. Look at what just happened with former Congressman Hastert last week. The Feds uncovered this illegal transfer of money to an someone he allegedly abused while a high school teacher and wrestling coach. You cannot keep things covered up forever. Blatter, however, is 79 y...

Dutch U20 just beat Qatar in Toulon tournament 5-1 .They lost their 2nd game 3-1 to USA on Friday and the final group game on Thursday v France.EL Ghazi and Warmerdam played both these games. El Ghazi need a rest pity Ajax did not pull him out this competition like they did with some others. From w...

Very interesting developments with the FIFA arrests in Switzerland. Of course no one is guilty until convicted, but it does appear that the rumors of corruption are true. Blatter states that he knew nothing, if he didn't, he should have and done something about it. A dark day for world football. Di...

Who knows? Maybe, once the feds are done ransacking FIFA, something like normalcy will return to the global game.

I doubt it, but one can hope.

Didn't he drop in on one of your pickup games a couple of years ago? Yes indeed. He's a humble and very decent human being. We had him over for dinner a few years ago, and he asked the boys if they wanted to play soccer. HE asked THEM. They were over the moon. Check it out. Such a great guy. I like...

As I figured, they are going to modify the financial fair play rules to favour the wealthy clubs. It was only a matter of time before Platini caved in. Another mail on the coffin for the Dutch league. Too bad I think it's about ten years too late to be able to change things. As long as there are cl...

Cool. What's he (J O'B) doing these days? I really don't know. Haven't actually talked to him in a while. I know he got married last year, and now he's a new dad. He is still doing some work with Soccer Without Borders. Other than that, not sure. Seems to be well, though. Didn't he drop in on one o...

SPL schreef:Gudelj is having a medical today and will sign for 6m euros. His 17 year old brother Dragi,a left back with NAC is also set to join and their father ex NAC coach will join as a scout.

Both Stam and Davids had moments of very good play when they returned to Ajax.

Orange14 schreef:Maybe I'll join SPL and start watching cricket matches, they must be more exciting than Ajax football matches!!!

Cricket is actually pretty cool, even though the state of governance in the international game is every bit as depressing as soccer.

SPL schreef:FDB has said Siggy was not good enough . Wow was he ever good enough!!!!!!!!

To be fair, I thought he looked pretty good when he first came on with the club. IIRC he got hurt and seems to have fallen off since then.

Ayman schreef:Yesterday I tweeted Raoila, told him to stay away from our kids and blasted him, by telling him all he wants to do is screw up Ajax

Awesome!

It's weird feeling optimism about a European fixture.

Hopefully it's justified.

Has anybody seen odds on this? Are we favored to advance?

Sounds like fun. Sing loud!

You're right that Frank should have another year, but it seems like he's gotten stale this year. I don't know if another year will fix that.