15 SEP 2021; Sporting - Ajax; CL Group Match 1

[SPL]

A great performance and lovely football.Haller will now have silenced his critics.Pity Pasveer made that mistake as he did ok for the rest of the night.Will be some tough games ahead but this is a fantastic start.

[Ayman]

Ajax fans speechless. Nice analysis from these Ajax vloggers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53jnj4lntAc

[Tom_]

I thought this was a very strange match!

Ajax got away with a bunch of mistakes and slack defending. Blind in particular was a liability. He’s so vulnerable in 1 on 1s and every time the ball went down their right side I thought they would score.

Barely saw Berghuis the whole match except for his excellent goal.

Add to that some comically poor refereeing and it felt like a classic European loss.

And yet, courtesy of a few good link ups between Antony and Haller we walk away with a huge win. Not going to complain too much but I reckon we’ll have to play a lot better in the remaining 5 games.

[Orange14]

I watched the replay last night. Ajax were flattered by the score from a combination of some of the worst defending by a top flight club and two favorable VAR calls. Passveer does not instill confidence and Ajax do need Onana to extend his contract but that probably won't happen (Inter Milan is rumored to be after him for January). Antony toyed with the Sporting LB all evening and Haller showed that he is indeed a goal scorer. Soren Lerby is the only Ajax player with more goals in a Euro game with 5 back in 1979. The young Spanish match official in his first Champions League game did not call a particularly good game. He whistled some high boot calls that I didn't think were correct and he should have disciplined players earlier before the match got too chippy. Still a 5-1 win is a great start to the campaign and Ajax need to maintain focus and particularly tighten up the defense. Three players picked up silly YCs which is not good in the first match. EtH got the tactics right on the mark.

Player Ratings:

Passveer (4.5) - he did make a couple of good saves but was awful on the first goal and had a high ball that he punched rather than caught
Blind (6) - woefully slow defending but his passing was good
Martinez (6.5) - looked a little rusty as he did not have a match at the weekend to get back in the flow, badly beaten on a header
Timber (6.5) - decent but not outstanding, another who picked up a YC
Mazraoui (7) - solid game at both ends
Alvarez (6.5) - he made one ball handling error but filled defensive gaps quite well
Gravenberch (7) - very good on the ball and was active all over the pitch
Berghuis (7) - great goal but seemed not to be heavily involved otherwise
Tadic (7) - solid play from the captain
Haller (8) - did what a striker is supposed to do, find the spaces, get the ball , and put it in the net
Antony (8.5) - clearly MOTM with some outstanding assists and unstoppable
Neres (5) - on for Antony and not much of a factor
Rensch (6) - on for Mazraoui and then switched to LB when Blind was subbed off had a couple of interventions
Schuurs (NR) - on for the final 10 minutes
Taylor (NR) - on late for Berghuis

Beskitas are up next in the CL. Cambuur are next in the League.


there was an earlier question about UEFA Coefficient Points. Wikipedia is the most up to date: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient Dutch are still behind Portugal but if all the teams keep winning, they can close the gap

[raymon]

I watched the replay last night. Ajax were flattered by the score from a combination of some of the worst defending by a top flight club and two favorable VAR calls. Passveer does not instill confidence and Ajax do need Onana to extend his contract but that probably won't happen (Inter Milan is rumored to be after him for January). Antony toyed with the Sporting LB all evening and Haller showed that he is indeed a goal scorer. Soren Lerby is the only Ajax player with more goals in a Euro game with 5 back in 1979. The young Spanish match official in his first Champions League game did not call a particularly good game. He whistled some high boot calls that I didn't think were correct and he should have disciplined players earlier before the match got too chippy. Still a 5-1 win is a great start to the campaign and Ajax need to maintain focus and particularly tighten up the defense. Three players picked up silly YCs which is not good in the first match. EtH got the tactics right on the mark.

Player Ratings:

Passveer (4.5) - he did make a couple of good saves but was awful on the first goal and had a high ball that he punched rather than caught
Blind (6) - woefully slow defending but his passing was good
Martinez (6.5) - looked a little rusty as he did not have a match at the weekend to get back in the flow, badly beaten on a header
Timber (6.5) - decent but not outstanding, another who picked up a YC
Mazraoui (7) - solid game at both ends
Alvarez (6.5) - he made one ball handling error but filled defensive gaps quite well
Gravenberch (7) - very good on the ball and was active all over the pitch
Berghuis (7) - great goal but seemed not to be heavily involved otherwise
Tadic (7) - solid play from the captain
Haller (8) - did what a striker is supposed to do, find the spaces, get the ball , and put it in the net
Antony (8.5) - clearly MOTM with some outstanding assists and unstoppable
Neres (5) - on for Antony and not much of a factor
Rensch (6) - on for Mazraoui and then switched to LB when Blind was subbed off had a couple of interventions
Schuurs (NR) - on for the final 10 minutes
Taylor (NR) - on late for Berghuis

Beskitas are up next in the CL. Cambuur are next in the League.


there was an earlier question about UEFA Coefficient Points. Wikipedia is the most up to date: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient Dutch are still behind Portugal but if all the teams keep winning, they can close the gap

Can't agree with Timber, played an outstanding game and was my man of the match. And Tadic had a wooful game.

[Amol]

I thought this was a very strange match!

Ajax got away with a bunch of mistakes and slack defending. Blind in particular was a liability. He’s so vulnerable in 1 on 1s and every time the ball went down their right side I thought they would score.

Barely saw Berghuis the whole match except for his excellent goal.

Add to that some comically poor refereeing and it felt like a classic European loss.

And yet, courtesy of a few good link ups between Antony and Haller we walk away with a huge win. Not going to complain too much but I reckon we’ll have to play a lot better in the remaining 5 games.

We did get away with a bunch of mistakes, but our setup forced them to sit back.

They were playing a 3-4-3 against our 4-3-3 where our front 3 kept their back 3 busy. Gravenberch and Berghuis were both playing further up field which caused their central MFs to move back. Also since Nous was always overlapping, their wide LM always had to track back to help out.

So their only outlet was from their right side through Blind.

For me every time a ball went to Pasveer, I would clench my teeth and hope for the best. He did have a pre-assist on the 2nd goal though.

[Orange14]

Can't agree with Timber, played an outstanding game and was my man of the match. And Tadic had a wooful game.

My bad on Timber. I saw the statistics on the match and he won every duel and had some great dribbles up the pitch. There is a reason that he displaced Schuurs last season!!!