'European' opponents 2007-2008

[K.J. Huntelaar]

Slavia was 5 times in the last round of the UEFA Champions League qualification and 5 times failed.

Important data. We just can't fck up this one. I'm sick of Copenhagen's.

[ZoefdeHaas]

Slavia have Smicer though, and players like him always help clubs like Slavia etc.

He wont be available on Wednesday, so we should own them 4-0 or something.

[Philippe]

will it be on the 27/08 or the 28/08 ?

Its between the 28th or 29th but its undecided yet for this fixture.

First one is on the 15th, 20:30.

now we know : the return leg is away, and it's on the 29th

[Kowalczyk]

I published a Slavia Prague profile on Ajax USA yesterday, which you might want to check out, with Wednesday's match coming closer...

http://www.ajax-usa.com/news/2007-2008/ ... fiers.html

K.

[Kowalczyk]

Right. On with it!

The draw for the first knock-out round of the UEFA Cup will take place tomorrow at 13:00 CET. Ajax are one of the seeded teams and will be in group 5 of the draw, which means that we will be paired with one of the following five...

NK Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)
FK Mladá Boleslav (Czech Republic)
PFC Lokomotiv Sofia (Bulgaria)
Larissa FC (Greece)
Hammarby (Sweden)

Read the full story over here:
http://www.uefa.com/competitions/uefacu ... 77830.html

Hammarby would be the nicest draw. Otherwise, let's have them Czechs and absolutely murder them!

K.

[K.J. Huntelaar]

Omg just not dinamo Zagreb please. They are gonna kill us.

[SE6Ajacied]

Right. On with it!

The draw for the first knock-out round of the UEFA Cup will take place tomorrow at 13:00 CET. Ajax are one of the seeded teams and will be in group 5 of the draw, which means that we will be paired with one of the following five...

NK Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)
FK Mladá Boleslav (Czech Republic)
PFC Lokomotiv Sofia (Bulgaria)
Larissa FC (Greece)
Hammarby (Sweden)

Read the full story over here:
http://www.uefa.com/competitions/uefacu ... 77830.html

Hammarby would be the nicest draw. Otherwise, let's have them Czechs and absolutely murder them!

K.

I've actually got a really bad feeling about this. Agreed that Hammarby would be the nicest draw but I'm hoping for the two I've never heard of (Greek and Czech) as these are the sort of teams we seem to do well against in Europe these days...

[Manneken Pis]

NK Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)
FK Mladá Boleslav (Czech Republic)
PFC Lokomotiv Sofia (Bulgaria)
Larissa FC (Greece)
Hammarby (Sweden)
K.

Yes ladies and gents, that's our level these days....

[SE6Ajacied]

NK Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)
FK Mladá Boleslav (Czech Republic)
PFC Lokomotiv Sofia (Bulgaria)
Larissa FC (Greece)
Hammarby (Sweden)
K.

Yes ladies and gents, that's our level these days....

and this bog-standard article actually make it worse....(from BBC website)

"British clubs await Uefa Cup draw

Date: Friday, 31 August
Time: 1200 BST
Follow the draw on the BBC Sport website, mobile and BBC Radio 5live
The draw for the first round proper of the Uefa Cup takes place in Monaco on Friday, with several British teams among the names in the hat.

Aberdeen, Bolton, Everton and Tottenham all enter at this stage.

Blackburn will join them after seeing off Finnish side MyPa 3-0 on aggregate in the final qualifying round.

But Dunfermline went out 2-1 to Swedish side BK Haken and Irish League side Drogheda United were beaten 4-1 on aggregate by Helsinborgs.

The 40 teams that progress from the first round proper go into a group phase comprising eight groups of five clubs.

Each team will be play two home and two away ties, with the top three teams progressing through to the round of 32, at which point they are joined by eight sides finishing third in their Champions League group.

Notable clubs in the draw include Bayern Munich, Palermo, Fiorentina, Bordeaux, Villarreal and Galatasaray. "

My bold and italics but we don't even make it into the list of "notable clubs" now, behind Palermo and Galatasaray.....only in the view of the person who wrote this article but that still hurts.

[Philippe]

what about number 3 from Liechtenstein ?

[ZoefdeHaas]

Notable clubs in the draw include Bayern Munich, Palermo, Fiorentina, Bordeaux, Villarreal and Galatasaray. "

My bold and italics but we don't even make it into the list of "notable clubs" now, behind Palermo and Galatasaray.....only in the view of the person who wrote this article but that still hurts.

I don't think it refers to us as we may not have English clubs? I mean where's Toulouse etc.?

[Kowalczyk]

NK Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)
FK Mladá Boleslav (Czech Republic)
PFC Lokomotiv Sofia (Bulgaria)
Larissa FC (Greece)
Hammarby (Sweden)

Yes ladies and gents, that's our level these days....

Yes, indeed it is. And it is about time we adopt an attitude that's a bit more humble. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as being humble doesn't mean that it is from now on forbidden to beat people. We are still allowed to do that.

Fact is that since the turn of the century we've suffered deeply humiliating and in most cases fatal defeats in UEFA competition to Lausanne Sports, FC København (twice), Club Brugge, Maccabi Tel-Aviv and Slavia Prague.

The only opponents we beat comfortably in both legs in recent years were FC Thun and IK Start, and even they scored two equalizers each against us - and made us look like a bunch of tits for at least 45 minutes.

Conclusion: unless it's the very lowest of the lowest, literally everybody can give us a hard time and crack our defense at least once in 90 minutes of football.

Again: it's time to be humble. For a change.

We're going to play one of these five opponents in the first round of the UEFA Cup. We're not "too good" for that. There is absolutely no reason in the world for us to feel superior to any of these teams. We will play them, aware of the fact that we will have to be good and give 100%, and that it would be a nice success if we manage to eliminate them and advance in Europe.

We'll take it from there - and we'll see where it ends. If we crash out against the very first opponent of significance (or not even that)? Well, we didn't expect it to be any better, did we, based on the last five seasons? Perhaps we'll over-achieve and eliminate a proper team or two. That would be fantastic.

This was Ajax's attitude back in 1987, after a long, long series of first round eliminations in Europe. The 1980s were a dark time. Ajax did not take anything for granted against Bursaspor and Olympiakos Piraeus in the first rounds of the Cup Winners Cup. Not one condescending word. When Ajax made it to the quarter finals (facing Malmö FF) it was on the eight o 'clock news in Holland.

Now that would be appropriate attitude right now. At the time, in 1987, it suited us well and the story had a pretty happy ending.

But for now, we're not better than anyone else until the job is done. Period.

So whoever we get: let's not say "We shouldn't underestimate them", for that is a subtly condescending comment in itself. Instead, let's say: "There is absolutely no reason for us to feel superior to this team. We're as much of a dark horse as they are. They qualified for Europe, just like us. All we can do is work hard, give everything and see where it ends."

And we better mean it!

"Jesus, Menno... Doesn't it hurt to speak about Ajax in this manner?"

Yes, it does. It hurts tremendously. But it's the truth. Embrace your pain, be humble, support your club and get on with it.

K.

[DanK]

"Jesus, Menno... Doesn't it hurt to speak about Ajax in this manner?"

Yes, it does. It hurts tremendously. But it's the truth. Embrace your pain, be humble, support your club and get on with it.

K.

I take comfort in the fact that we have been here or there abouts before, and we came back to win in Europe in 92/95.

Lets learn from this, and get stronger. Lets win the league, the cup and do extremely well in the UEFA Cup. That makes a pretty darn good season imho.

Then lets follow that up with a decent showing in next years CL and get back to where we belong. Not necessarily Europe's top, but where we are respected and a real football club again.

Ajax forever!!!

[Cmon1983]

Ajax will play Dynamo Zagreb !
It's not that easy though... eastern european hell is waiting for us over there...

[Philippe]

Lets learn from this, and get stronger. Lets win the league, the cup and do extremely well in the UEFA Cup. That makes a pretty darn good season imho.

Ajax, building from scratch since 1999 ........

[Manneken Pis]

So whoever we get: let's not say "We shouldn't underestimate them", for that is a subtly condescending comment in itself. Instead, let's say: "There is absolutely no reason for us to feel superior to this team. We're as much of a dark horse as they are. They qualified for Europe, just like us. All we can do is work hard, give everything and see where it ends."

And we better mean it!
K.

After hubris comes the revenge of nemesis....

[acab]

that's it - dinamo zagreb. no uefa groups this year.
gatorade cup will be ours again don't warrie

[Manneken Pis]

So whoever we get: let's not say "We shouldn't underestimate them", for that is a subtly condescending comment in itself. Instead, let's say: "There is absolutely no reason for us to feel superior to this team. We're as much of a dark horse as they are. They qualified for Europe, just like us. All we can do is work hard, give everything and see where it ends."

And we better mean it!
K.

I totally agree Ko, but were talking in our little ajaxtalk.nl universe here...do you think the players are getting this message?

Who's telling them the real deal?
HtC (publicly at least) doesn't seem like the bollocking type...
Other coaching staff?
The fans?

[Assassin]

that's it - dinamo zagreb. no uefa groups this year.
gatorade cup will be ours again don't warrie

Well, I don't think so. They had two OK games against Werder, but they are not so good after all(yeah, I know, neither was Slavia).

[acab]

that's it - dinamo zagreb. no uefa groups this year.
gatorade cup will be ours again don't warrie

Well, I don't think so. They had two OK games against Werder, but they are not so good after all(yeah, I know, neither was Slavia).

dinamo is better than slavia, trust me

[Manneken Pis]

that's it - dinamo zagreb. no uefa groups this year.
gatorade cup will be ours again don't warrie

Well, I don't think so. They had two OK games against Werder, but they are not so good after all(yeah, I know, neither was Slavia).

dinamo is better than slavia, trust me

And we're not as good as Werder....

[Kowalczyk]

Story on UEFA.com...

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/uefacu ... 77980.html

Nice to be making headlines...

K.

[Philippe]

Ajaxsupporters gratis naar UEFA Cupduel
De seizoenkaarthouders van Ajax krijgen gratis toegang tot het eerste thuisduel in de UEFA Cup. "Wij bewonderen de steun van de supporters die ook in moeilijke tijden achter ons staan", zegt Maarten Fontein

Free entrance for the season card holders : reminds me of the song "can't buy me love" ....

[cdnajaxfan]

There is definitely someone at UEFA that does not like our club. There "random draws" are not so random in my opinion. Look at who we have drawn in the past 2 CL Qualifiers, Copenhagen who were the toughest team, IMO that year and Slavia, a Czech team and the Czechs are always tough. Last year's UEFA draw, Werder Bremen! The year before, Lille! Now we get Dinamo Zagreb who is no pushover either! Come on! This is BS of the highest order. So are we going to tank out of the UEFA Cup as well now?!

[ajaxperu]

Look at who we have drawn in the past 2 CL Qualifiers, Copenhagen who were the toughest team, IMO that year and Slavia, a Czech team and the Czechs are always tough

Actually I thought Slavia was one of the easiest we could get. I still think they are shit and that makes me even more angry. Dinamo Zagreb will definetly be a difficult one, but I think that at this moment we shouldn't focus on wether a team looks easy or not, we just have to win no matter what.