Ajaxtalk

Good drow. Dynamo is strong team, but so are samp, auxerre, even YBoys. We can do it. they play regular CL-football, so it's about tima to broke this tradition.

Oh boy this one is going to be tough....to say the least

I'm not feeling good about the draw but what the heck, i guess the only thing we can do is give it all on the pitch....i think its pretty clear that now we really are the underdog, a position that ajax feels more comfortable with.

We'll see if this Ajax team is ready to play in the Champions League after this though. I mean if they end up losing badly against Kiev, would you really have wanted to come up against Barcelona and Madrid in the 1st round of the CL?

I was more worried about losing to a team like PAOK than to Kiev. That would've been very embarrassing. In my opinion, the PAOK games came too early in the season for us.

For the Kiev games, we have two more weeks, we now have a striker and most of the team from last year is still there.
We would've played 2 games in the Eredivisie, and will hopefully have more game rhythm.

Do I think Ajax will lose to Kiev? Maybe. But we need to see if they can get past a team like Kiev rather than get slaughtered in the CL proper.

I think that in the CL there are only about 10 teams which are currently "unbeatable" for us (a few are even pretty weak).
All the others may tough challenges but can be beaten. This applies to Kiev too.

After the draw:

Andriy Shevchenko, Dynamo striker
I did not have any preferences. There were no weak teams in the list of our five potential opponents. All the teams are equally strong, including Ajax. It will be not easy for us, that is for sure. Our task is to approach these game at the peak of our form and to play even better than before. I can't say much about their team at the moment. One thing I know is that they had tricky games in the previous round. However, all matches are different and they will do their best against us.

Martin Jol, Ajax coach
I had a feeling we were going to draw them and they are the team we were most eager to avoid. They are tough and have experience of playing in the Champions League, both in the past and recently. They have strengthened their team with expensive players too. For us this is the toughest possible draw but that's the way it is. Unfortunately we were not really lucky.

One thing is for sure, this Ajax team won't take Dynamo Kiev lightly - which is really good. If we would've come up against Young Boys for example, I would've been really worried.

Last year, we didn't have any problems with the big teams (in the Eredivisie at least), but we had lapses of concentration against the so-called minnows.

Amol schreef:One thing is for sure, this Ajax team won't take Dynamo Kiev lightly - which is really good. If we would've come up against Young Boys for example, I would've been really worried.

My thoughts exactly.

I have to admit that when I saw the list of possible opponents after the PAOK game, I thought: wow, that's nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. All of these will be tough opposition, and Dynamo Kiev would be the toughest of the lot, but we have a chance against any of these five.

And I still believe that. I'm pretty sure we'll see a pretty good Ajax against Dynamo Kiev. Ajax always play well against good teams. Question is: will a good Ajax performance be enough to eliminate Dynamo Kiev?

Who knows.

K.

And it's always the same problem with Eastern European teams. Their championships start earlier, meaning their players will be in top notch shape to play Ajax. Bummer.

Bertrand schreef:And it's always the same problem with Eastern European teams. Their championships start earlier, meaning their players will be in top notch shape to play Ajax. Bummer.

Apologies for hijacking the thread, but Bertrand good seeing you again after such a long time. Are you back living in Paris. Will you be coming up for games this season. If you are let me, Ko etc know and will meet up for a beer.

Anyway welcome back

I am indeed back in Paris and will probably be coming back to Amsterdam at some point, yes. Maybe for a Champions League game... See what I did there?

Bertrand schreef:Pardon my question (I've been away from anything Ajax for about three years), but you make it sound like Ajax actually has a shot at keeping Suarez. What are the odds of him staying around for another season?

The more important questions are, how the hell have you been? Where the hell have you been?

I've been awesome, as usual. Nah, more seriously, I was in Vancouver, Canada, discovering North America and busy working, finding love, getting a fancy English diploma, visiting the States and much more. The usual for an adventurous 27 year-old

Bertrand schreef:I've been awesome, as usual. Nah, more seriously, I was in Vancouver, Canada, discovering North America and busy working, finding love, getting a fancy English diploma, visiting the States and much more. The usual for an adventurous 27 year-old

Hi Bertrand - good to see you back anyway - if you've been here in the UK you'll have managed to get the Duraglit metal polish (I have a very good memory for obscure old conversations ).

Two things. First and most important, Welcome back Bertrand ! Second, just heard on Fox Sports Channel that a certain Amsterdam based FC will be playing on FSC at 2:00 P.M. Tuesday.

http://en.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Down ... WNLOAD.pdf

You can read in this document that Ajax earned 1,7 millions € in Europa League. Atletico won the competition and earned 6,4 millions while Fulham got some 10 millions.

Maccabi Haifa played the Champions League, lost their 6 games and didn't scored a single goal, but they still managed to earn 8 millions €...

Oh wow - it's almost half time in the return game and Sevilla is in big danger of getting kicked out by Braga. Sevilla lost the away game 1-0 and are down 1-0 in this one as well.

This would be pretty shocking!

Shytza - 6 more goals were scored in the second half. Sevilla is out 3-5 on aggregate.

And it's why Portugal have a good UEFA coefficient. Every year it seems they qualify two teams for CL football and one of them often makes the final 8.

Cedric_AeF schreef:You can read in this document that Ajax earned 1,7 millions € in Europa League. Atletico won the competition and earned 6,4 millions

There you have it.

A club will earn 12 million euros at least (more like 15 or 16, probably) only by qualifying for the Champions League group stage.

K.

the draw is tomorow! we're in the 3rd pot. http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague ... stage+draw

Here we can work of fantasy to imagine what could (or we would to) happen tomorrow


Pot 1
------------------------
Internazionale
FC Barcelona
Manchester United
Chelsea
Arsenal
Bayern Munchen
AC Milan
Olympique Lyon

Pot 2
--------------------
Werder Bremen
Real Madrid
AS Roma
Shakhtar Donetsk
Benfica
Valencia
Olympique Marseille
Panathinaikos

Pot 3
------------------------
Tottenham Hotspur
Glasgow Rangers
Ajax
Schalke 04
FC Basel
Sporting Braga
FC Kopenhagen
Spartak Moskou

Pot 4
--------------------
Hapoel Tel-Aviv
FC Twente
Rubin Kazan
AJ Auxerre
CFR Cluj
Partizan Belgrado
Zilina
Bursaspor

I'll take Olympique Lyon, Panathinaikos, and Hapoel Tel Aviv if you please .

Watching the match on tv...no Suarez and no Vertonghen in match day 1 due to yellow card accumulation ..YIKES !!!

the draw is tomorow! we're in the 3rd pot. http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague ... stage+draw

As long as Ajax don't draw fucking Inter Milan again I'll be happy, we always draw Inter, it's so fucking boring.

They are all beatable teams!! Seriously though, I think we are just as good as some of the teams in the second pot such as Werder.