Ajaxtalk

LucaS schreef:Maar Litmanen had hem waarschijnlijk wel afgelegd voor een zekere goal

Trab schreef:Vind vde Beek erg lijken op Jari Litmanen qua spel. Zelfde diepgang, 1x raken, oog voor de combinatie, het afwerken op doel. Dat overstapje ook bij die bal die hij niet aflegde. Typisch Litmanen.

wimpey schreef:
Ik heb een knagend gevoel dat die kansen heel duur zullen blijken. De druk op dit team zal woensdag enorm zijn. Ze oogden na rust gister al verstijfd van de spanning, de simpelste ballen vlogen overal heen. Dit is nog lang niet gedaan, want Spurs kan er mentaal vrij onbevangen tegenaan gaan door de tussenstand.

wimpey schreef:Ze oogden na rust gister al verstijfd van de spanning.

Toppie schreef:Okay ik gooi hem e in, Eikel zondag winnen of Woensdag doorgaan in de CL naar die andere finale , welke is belangrijker ?

Ajax, Unshakable on Champions League Stage, Inches Closer to Final

LONDON — In the first few seconds of his first Champions League semifinal, the biggest game of his career, the brightest stage, with Tottenham Hotspur Stadium baying and roaring around him, with the eyes of the world upon him, with the weight of Ajax’s gilded history on his back and the hope of the present on his shoulders, Frenkie de Jong controlled the ball. He looked up. And he shimmied.

That is where it all started. Ajax would need far more than that one move to beat Tottenham Hotspur, of course, and take a small but significant step toward a first Champions League final in more than two decades. It would require, at various points, a laser focus in defense and a precision scalpel in attack; a deep wellspring of energy and a rich seam of resolve; Matthijs de Ligt’s gritted-teeth indomitability and Donny van de Beek’s dead-eyed finishing.

But the shimmy encapsulated everything; the shimmy explained it all. How a team built with a fraction of the budget of a typical Champions League contender finds itself, after Tuesday’s 1-0 victory over Spurs, 90 minutes from the final; how these players could eliminate Real Madrid and Juventus; why this squad has not just won all of its knockout games on the road, but so many hearts and minds along the way.


It came straight from the kickoff. The ball rolled back to de Jong. Scarcely can a 21-year-old have looked quite so at ease in such surroundings, such circumstances. De Ligt is the captain, and leader, of this Ajax team; Hakim Ziyech is its imagination. De Jong is its brain.


He looked up, assessing his situation. He saw: Daley Blind and de Ligt drifting either side of him, left and right, his primary options; his fullbacks, Nicolás Tagliafico and Joel Veltman, beyond them, the more ambitious possibilities; directly in front of him, the imposing Spurs striker Fernando Llorente bearing down on him. De Jong did not move.

Llorente is not quick — and would not pretend to be quick — but he is a sizable obstacle. De Jong might have had the sensation of being closed down by an encroaching glacier. He might have felt hemmed in, a little panicked. He might have rushed his pass, or made a poor choice, or dallied a moment too long.

Instead, he shimmied. He leaned forward on his right foot, drawing Llorente in, a dancer beginning a tango. He did it again: the slightest shift in weight, a momentary drop of the shoulders. Llorente crept closer, sniffing a chance. The ball had been at de Jong’s feet for what seemed like an age. He still did not move. At the last moment, his prey in his trap, his point made, he calmly knocked the ball off to his side. Llorente lunged at thin air. Ajax began to play.


What has characterized Ajax this season, what carried Erik ten Hag’s team past Real Madrid in the round of 16 and Juventus in the quarterfinals, is fearlessness. Ajax has not been cowed by its opponents’ reputations. It has not been discouraged by a comparative dearth of experience. It has refused to succumb to conventional wisdom, that a team from a lesser league and paid lesser wages must automatically shrink into its shell to have any hope of surviving. It has trusted its instincts, imposed its own beliefs on the most illustrious opposition, and thrived.

By the standards of the teams it has beaten, this was, paradoxically, the least of its challenges. Tottenham, at full strength, is a fearsome proposition, one perhaps not quite as redolent of European glory as either Real Madrid or Juventus, but a modern powerhouse all the same. Spurs was, though, some way short of full strength, stripped not only of Harry Kane but Son Heung-min, its other rapier threat, and running on fumes in midfield.

The test was the stage. Ajax, for the first time in this Champions League run, started a game as the favorite. The thousands of boisterous fans who had traveled from Amsterdam, who had packed the trains and the buses and the tubes on the way to north London, might not have expected to be here at the start of the season.

They might, in time, be willing to see a semifinal as a remarkable success, but here and now, with a place in the final within their grasp, with only a decimated Spurs team standing in their way? Expectations might, understandably, have been revised a little in the spring sunshine.

There is a pressure in having nothing to lose, in trying to achieve the impossible, to overturn the odds. There is a very different sort of pressure in having to live up to the lofty standards you have set, to do justice to a legacy that has only just been created, to be the version of yourself that people believe you to be. That was the pressure that might have derailed Ajax, that might have caused de Jong and his young teammates to second-guess themselves, that might have brought a stutter to their rhythm.


Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen had to be helped off the field after sustaining a head injury in the first half.CreditNeil Hall/EPA, via Shutterstock
If there was any worry that it might, if there was any fear that this would prove a step too far, it dissipated with the shimmy. Ajax was not overwhelmed. Ajax was not awed. And for the next 30 minutes, de Jong orchestrated an electric, unyielding assault on Spurs’ defensive line, intricate and intense, the visitors’ superiority so absolute that, at times, it seemed a little unfair.

That it only produced a single goal might yet come to be a source of regret: Spurs will have Son, back from suspension, for the second leg in Amsterdam, after all.

The nature of the result, though, will offer some solace: Ziyech’s threaded ball to van de Beek, the midfielder pausing — once, twice — to unbalance Hugo Lloris before passing his shot into the far corner. So, too, the response to Spurs’ efforts in the second half, standing firm in the face of a relentless, but largely aimless, siege. Ajax could handle everything Spurs could muster. It did not flinch, did not wilt, did not stumble. Even on this stage, even under this pressure, even with a place in history within touching distance, Ajax kept its nerve, and played.

Toppie schreef:Okay ik gooi hem e in, Eikel zondag winnen of Woensdag doorgaan in de CL naar die andere finale , welke is belangrijker ?

Lionel schreef:Die Donny staat gewoon 'buitenspel' he bij de 1-0. Althans, hij kan de rechtsback nooit gezien hebben.

Ajaciedjuh schreef:

Lionel schreef:Die Donny staat gewoon 'buitenspel' he bij de 1-0. Althans, hij kan de rechtsback nooit gezien hebben.

Is dat een nieuwe regel? Spelers die je niet ziet, tellen niet mee?

WP_Legend schreef:ps. sommigen zeggen dat Sisoko niet had gekomen als Vertonghen niet gebleseerd was, maar ik heb net de eerste helft nog even bekenen, maar hij liep in de 27e minuut al warm, dus die had zeker wel gekomen, misschien niet in de eerste helft maar zeker in de rust!

Lionel schreef:Die Donny staat gewoon 'buitenspel' he bij de 1-0. Althans, hij kan de rechtsback nooit gezien hebben.

wimpey schreef:Wat was Blind trouwens weer goed. Mijn Ajacied van April.

Na AZ is bij hem de knop omgegaan. Lijkt ook iemand die gedijt bij een ritme van veel wedstrijden spelen.

Yopii schreef:

Lionel schreef:Die Donny staat gewoon 'buitenspel' he bij de 1-0. Althans, hij kan de rechtsback nooit gezien hebben.

Dat is dus al de tweede keer in korte tijd dat Ajax een geldig doelpunt maakt omdat een back blijft hangen. Tegen Juventus hetzelfde verhaal.

De combinaties van Ajax zijn zo flitsend, blijkbaar is het lastig voor verdedigers om daarop in te spelen.

Ik zie de return met vertrouwen tegemoet. TH straalde weinig uit en dwong nog minder af. De finale wordt wel een ander verhaal. Dan speel je tegen een team dat fysiek top is, of tegen een team dat technisch/aanvallend buitencategorie is.

Monkey Tonk schreef:

kruifie schreef:Hoe staat het met de error index? En kan ik aandelen krijgen?

Error Index - onder voorbehoud, deze keer, vanwege een andere index: TOT 3 - AJAX 0 (voordeel Ajax).

Lionel schreef: Finale wordt inderdaad andere koek. Maar goed. Daar staan.... Wauw!

kruifie schreef:

Monkey Tonk schreef:

kruifie schreef:Hoe staat het met de error index? En kan ik aandelen krijgen?

Error Index - onder voorbehoud, deze keer, vanwege een andere index: TOT 3 - AJAX 0 (voordeel Ajax).

En wéér een overwinning voor de error index! Zegt die al iets over de finale??!

wimpey schreef:

kruifie schreef:

Monkey Tonk schreef:
Error Index - onder voorbehoud, deze keer, vanwege een andere index: TOT 3 - AJAX 0 (voordeel Ajax).

En wéér een overwinning voor de error index! Zegt die al iets over de finale??!

Kap met jinxen! Woensdag halve finale!