31 Jan 2009: Ajax - SC Heerenveen

[Philippe]

Firing Van Basten would be a totally stupid thing to do. K.

Indeed. Next time this idiot from the video shouts at MvB, I suggest that someone tells him to shut the fuck up in a very persuasive way.

[DanK]

DanK, sure it's tough on Marco but it's been tougher for the supporters(including the so called idiots). I think much of their frustration emanates from the very understandable fear that Ajax is fast approaching
an unrecoverable state.

Frustration I can understand. But there is a difference between frustration and losing the plot. When you sit down at the game and within the first few minutes a few people behind you start bagging the team and the coach for pretty much every pass, every decision, it really gets on your nerves. Why come if all you are going to do is complain? Stay home and yell obscenities at your TV.

To clarify this is a small minority of people, and most supporters are just that, supporters. Fantastic supporters actually, who like I, LOVE this club, and WANT it to succeed, but firing (I can't believe there is even talk of it) your newly appointed coach half way through a season, when you are currently lying in 2nd place (behind the team that has probably been the best in The Netherlands for a while), a team that has in general improved greatly, or at least more so than over the past 3 or 4 years, with what is still a below par roster would be plain stupid.

[Kowalczyk]

Well, he may shout, that's fine with me. He surely had a point, in an idiotic way.

But over the years we have sacked (or 'forced' to step back) Morten Olsen, Co Adriaanse, Ronald Koeman, Danny Blind, Henk ten Cate and Adrie Koster, not even to mention an express train full of assistants and technical directors such as Danny Blind, Martin van Geel and Louis van Gaal.

These people were professionals. Good people. Not necessarily inept morons.

I just don't believe it will help if we axe another one.

The people we have now, are the people we're going to do it with. Give them time, let them do their jobs and hang in there.

K.

[dws]

Well, he may shout, that's fine with me. He surely had a point, in an idiotic way.

The people we have now, are the people we're going to do it with. Give them time, let them do their jobs and hang in there.

I couldn't agree more with the above points.

[DanK]

Well, he may shout, that's fine with me. He surely had a point, in an idiotic way.

The people we have now, are the people we're going to do it with. Give them time, let them do their jobs and hang in there.

I couldn't agree more with the above points.

Leave it to Menno to sum up pretty much what most of us feel

[Tom_]

Yeah. I can't believe we're even discussing sacking him. What the fuck?

He's halfway through his first season; the squad's not great; our #9 has just been sold. We get absolutely thumped by 1-0 two games in a row... BURN HIM!!!

[Over Pasanens Head]

The problem with all of this team building business is that one of our best players in Suarez will be off in the summer and thus leaving another gap. As I have said before we need say 5 or 6 players of a high quality coming through at the same time to stand a chance of building another great team.

However, I feel that there isn't a lot wrong with the team now - a bit of tinkering (and that includes a midfield playmaker) in a couple of positions and we will be rocking and rolling.

Normally I moan and groan that Ajax don't play with enough tempo but on Saturday I thought that we tried to play it too quickly and gave the ball away far too much. Just no pleasing me

Last comment by me on the game was that Gabri was absolutely immense

[dws]

Well, he may shout, that's fine with me. He surely had a point, in an idiotic way.

The people we have now, are the people we're going to do it with. Give them time, let them do their jobs and hang in there.

I couldn't agree more with the above points.

Leave it to Menno to sum up pretty much what most of us feel

Yeah, he's a good professional. :hupajax.gif:

I'm guilty of being a lazy amateur with a tendency for leaving my posts open to interpretation.

[Kowalczyk]

Well, he may shout, that's fine with me. He surely had a point, in an idiotic way.

In fact... the onlytruly stupid and daft remark in that little video is the reply from the official on the pitch, who yells back: "Calm down. It's only a game."

Those are the words of a man who is actually on the payrole of AFC Ajax, a football club with an annual budget of 65 million euros, a club that spent 34 million euros on new players this summer.

Does anyone at Ajax seriously believe that it's "just a game"...?

"It's just a game." That, to me, is the most embarrassing remark in that video...

K.

[Duke]

Does anyone at Ajax seriously believe that it's "just a game"...?

Let's hope they don't....

But I totally agree with you: strange remark of the official.

[DanK]

Well, he may shout, that's fine with me. He surely had a point, in an idiotic way.

In fact... the onlytruly stupid and daft remark in that little video is the reply from the official on the pitch, who yells back: "Calm down. It's only a game."

Those are the words of a man who is actually on the payrole of AFC Ajax, a football club with an annual budget of 65 million euros, a club that spent 34 million euros on new players this summer.

Does anyone at Ajax seriously believe that it's "just a game"...?

"It's just a game." That, to me, is the most embarrassing remark in that video...

K.

Technically he's right. It is just a game. But lets dig a little deeper...It's a game that when I was in Oz, I would get up at 3am to watch, a game that has made me cry with happiness and sadness, a game that has made me yell stupid things at the TV much to my wife's embarrassment, a game that I have been lucky enough to travel from Oz to Amsterdam to watch, a game that brings more people together than anything else I know.

There is an old saying I love. Football is not life and death, its much more important than that (or something similar).

[SE6Ajacied]

There is an old saying I love. Football is not life and death, its much more important than that (or something similar).

Indeed there is, and a very prophetic saying it is too - Bill Shankly ""Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/lfc_story/a_quotes.shtml

Thanks to Menno for the finer points of Dutch translation from that video - I think I got most of what the "Edgar Davids" was saying but that is indeed a pretty strange thing for the team employee to be saying - strikes me that he might be in the wrong job. Perhaps he's just a member of the kit team or something but there's another famous quote that I like from a cleaner, around the time of the Apollo moon landingsa to US President Johnson http://www.joesbigadventureblog.com/200 ... -moon.html

Perhaps if it's just a game he'd be better of working for Albert Heijn or Hema or whatever instead.....

[Kowalczyk]

Thanks to Menno for the finer points of Dutch translation from that video - I think I got most of what the "Edgar Davids" was saying

What the good man yelled was quite 'reasonable'. His 'lingo' was not offensive at all. The only term of abuse he used was the Dutch word pannenkoek ('pancake'), which is a very mild, almost friendly way of saying 'blockhead' in Amsterdam speech. Good mates can call each other pannenkoek.

He repeats himself quite a few times, but basically what he's saying is: "Hey, Marco! Thanks very much for this, you pancake! There goes your title! The championship... gone! No more championship!"

Then the bloke on the pitch says: "So what?" (I mean... WTF...?)

Guy on the stands: "What you mean 'so what?' That third star! Over here!" [starts pounding on the Ajax logo on his chest]

Bloke on the pitch: "Calm down. It's just a game, you know!"

"A game? It's all about that third star! That's what you're doin' it for! That third star!" (etc.)

That's it, roughly. It really was as innocent as that. No equivalents of the 'f-word' at all, let alone nasty stuff like diseases or anything like that.

As I said before: nothing he yelled was as stupid as the Ajax official's reply...

K.

[Monkey Tonk]

Good kid. The over-my-dead-body mentality that is missing on the pitch.

If the players would hold each other accountable like that, we would be in business.
They used to, you know.