21 Feb 2013: FC Steaua București - Ajax

[Orange14]

Vermeer is strong in saving penalties if we are going to that. This game will ware us out, so lets make it count for something and go through!!!

But do we have any players who can make penalties? Sulejmani was the only consistent penalty take of the last four years!

[Amol]

Wonder if we even practise penalties. We'll soon find out.

Can't remember the last time I've seen us in a penalty shootout.

[SPL]

aweful game and the last 30 mins was just a waste of time . Cannot face watching the penalties

[Orange14]

What a lame penalty by Schöne

[Amol]

I was wondering which one of our players would shoot into the stands

[martinkohout]

Bloody hell.

[Tom_]

Oh dear. Well, we didn't look much like Ajax tonight, until the penalties...

[Van basten]

fucking cunts. years goes past, but one thing never changes - ajax is a joke in europe. fuck you ajax.

[paladinby]

Sometimes it's just a matter of character and we had none.

[Orange14]

No European distractions any longer. Terrible match all around and I don't think there is anyone who can be proud of how they played in this match. On to Ado den Haag on the weekend, a team we always have difficulty with. I'm just disgusted!

[SPL]

well I watched and no surprise they lost .What a dreadful game to watch but at least we wont have any more Thursday nights to get in the way of winning the league

[ofey]

Terrible performance.

Whoever thought defending a 2-0 lead away was a good idea? Whatever happened to our pressing game?

We *choked*, make no mistake about it.

I am pissed off with the team!

And playing Cuenca? You stoned or stupid?

[King Litti]

I wonder Why FdB chose Moisander to shoot one? I thought we maybe had stronger penalty takers.

[ajaxcolombia]

hahaha ohhh man, my romanian friends here in amsterdam are gonna give me some hard time for this hahahah

[souras84]

No one to inspire and guide the youngsters during difficult times such as being 2-0 down away. Siem is very little as a captain and Poulsen isn't anything near a Rijkaard to the team (Mentally). Thats our main problem. Has been since 2004-2005

[SPL]

That must rate as one of our poorest games in Europe for along time even worse than the Real Madrid defeats given the standard of opposition tonight. At 90 mins I predicted a boring 30 mins of extra time and defeat on penalties and although I do not gamble I would have put my house on that !

As for Moisander taking a penalty just about sumed it up .

[Blind3]

I'm taking a breather from Ajax. Think I'll concentrate on enjoying music . Save for the pit, it's much less painful .

[kezme44]

wtf happened??!!

how do you lose against a romanian team being up 2-0 and the romanians missing the core of their team??

[Philippe]

Terrible game. Wrong defending strategy. Only Blind and Alderweireld played well.
Moisander was invisible. Very weak middle field. Vermeer's blunder on the back pass will make us the joke of the week on tv around the world.

[Venezuelan Ajacied]

Frustrating to say the least. I can understand losing to the Real's, Barca's and Bayern's, but we really should be able to defeat teams like Steau, even more so after a 2-0 first leg lead. We are just too mentally fragile, and a lot of it has to do with our youth. I guess this is something we just have to live with...sigh.

[aveslacker]

On the bright side, this increases our chances of winning the Eredivisie for the third time in a row, and I'm ok with that.

[Tom_]

Time and time again we find out that when a less technical but physically stronger / faster side puts us under pressure, we crumble. We know it's going to happen, I just can't believe that we're never prepared for it...

[SPL]

on the European front its been a very bad week with last night's inept display against poor opposition and of course our U19's being beaten by Villa youths in the Next Gen.

[King Litti]

What a nightmare. Bitterly disappointed. All we needed was one freaking goal but no, we had to drag it to a shoot out which is always a bit of a coin toss, but I knew our guys mentality was not high as we lost the lead. It was in the air. The home crowd cheering Steaua on and making sure our young guys felt the pressure. I guess Moisander took the shot cause he was one of the most experienced players, but I always feel kind of weird seeing a defender take a penalty.

Just hope we can bounce back. Two important games coming up. We lost the chance of winning silverware in Europe. If we fail to beat Ado and AZ we can start saying goodbye to silverware all together.

Time for comeback.

[Orange14]

I'm just completely stunned that the players and FdB have been quoted as saying there was a great deal of luck associated with the Steaua victory last night. GET REAL!!!!! This team was just not ready to play an away match in an arena where the noise level was going to be high against a physical team that wanted to show that their performance in Amsterdam was just a fluke. They succeeded and Ajax did not. Sure penalties are a bit of a lottery and I was doubtful that we were going to come through regardless of what kind of great saves Vermeer would make (he made none).

Our vaunted possession game was terrible and Steaua had 52% to our 48% and if you take away all the passes between Moisander, Vermeer and Alderwiereld it was even worse (the only statistic we seemed to come out on top of was fewer off sides). We only wanted to probe up the left side of the pitch (and this may be why Latovlecici was able to have a free run down our right defensive side and consistently cause trouble for van Rhijn, who was rubbish on the goal). Even that was unsuccessful as Blind, Eriksen and Fischer were constantly getting too close to one another making it really easy for them to defend. As we all know de Jong cannot play in the midfield as his handling speed is too slow which is probably why the right side is unavailable unless Schöne is in the lineup at that spot. Cuenca saw the ball so little that he might as well have bought a ticket and watched from the stands.

I don't know what possessed Vermeer to handle the back pass; that's the first time in years that I've seen a keeper do that and it just points to a lack of mental acuity (though he did have a decent enough match otherwise). I thought Alderwiereld and Moisander had good matches against some big and rough players and the second goal quite frankly was a thing of beauty. Now maybe Chiriches never hits another one like it in his lifetime, but I sure wouldn't use this as an excuse.

I was thinking that after the Milan/Barcelona match that the Calans played just like Ajax, lots of possession and nothing to show for it. Well last night Ajax looked just like Wednesday's Barca but without the possession. This team is in desparate need of some psychological counselling to figure out why they are not mentally tough (I can count on one hand the number of players in recent time who had this type of toughness and were able to set an example).

I'm sure that management will say, "...we will learn something from this match," but that is simply unacceptable to Ajax.