02 Apr 2005: SC Heerenveen - Ajax

[Kowalczyk]

After Sunday's Ajax vs PSV game there won't be an Ajax game for almost two weeks due to Holland's World Cup qualifiers against Armenia and (most importantly) Romania in week 12.

The first Eredivisie game after Ajax vs PSV will be the very tough road trip to Heerenveen on Saturday 02 April (4-1 hammering last year, remember?).

I'm looking forward to this one. It's free travelling for Ajax fans (no combi), it's always a nice game and we're always more than welcome in Heerenveen's supporters home. Great atmopshere. I'll be going there with Pizza 5, AFCA Madnezz, Baggy and our buddy Mark for the game and a night of pub crawling... :alc:

Anyways - the upcoming month will be tough and decisive. PSV at home, Heerenveen away, Feyenoord away and (on 21 April) the Amstel Cup semi final at Willem II...

K.

[Kowalczyk]

Suspended players:

Wesley Sneijder (Ajax) and Mika Väyrynen (Heerenveen). Both were handed a one game suspension due to accumulated yellow cards.

K.

[Kowalczyk]

Heerenveen away is an extremely tough one for Ajax, obviously, but 'the rest' don't have easy ones either:

PSV vs Utrecht
Feyenoord vs AZ

The latter fixture is particularly important for us... What should we hope for? Do we want Feyenoord to win, so that we can close in on AZ? Or do we hope that AZ will win - so that Feyenoord will be gone and AZ can continue the title race with PSV...?

To be honest I'm kind of hoping for an AZ win... One thing's for sure: we have to win.

K.

[Kowalczyk]

F*cking hell... What a sh*t season...

So, now F-Word can leapfrog us on goal differential. Great.

K.

[Philippe]

I think we could produce a video at the end of the season showing our enormous collection of defense blunders : fans from other clubs would purchase it to have a good laugh, and we could make a lot of money; this would help to buy a new striker

[BPBlueSox]

F*cking hell... What a sh*t season...

So, now F-Word can leapfrog us on goal differential. Great.

K.

and they did. :(

[Kowalczyk]

Yep. It was one hell of a weekend (again).

Anyway - here's the match report:
http://www.ajax-usa.com/matches/m04-05/ ... x-2-1.html

K.

[Kowalczyk]

Some statistics...

The two poorest seasons I have ever witnessed as an Ajax supporter were 1998-1999 (the year in which the De Boers screwed Morten Olsen; we finished 6th) and 1999-2000 (the centennial year with Jan Wouters; we finished 5th).

At the moment we are 4th, with 53 points out of 26 games (5 draws, 5 defeats, with a goal balance of 52-27. That's +25).

Let's compare that to those two terribly poor seasons, after 26 games.

1998-1999
6th, 44 points out of 26 games (8 draws, 6 defeats, with a goal-balance of 54-28 = a differential of +26)

1999-2000
5th, 50 points out of 26 games (5 draws, 6 defeats, with a goal-balance of 61-37 = a differential of +24)

Conclusions: this season is bad, but the 1998-1999 season was considerably worse. On the other hand: it is interesting to note that Jan Wouters was sacked in 2000 after the 25th game of the season. Out situation is only slightly better now than it was after Wouters' dismissal: 5 defeats instead of 6, and a goal-differential of +25 instead of +24). In other words: this season actually is a lot like the dark 1999-2000 season.

So, what did we do in the last eight games of 1999-2000 (matchdays 27 to 34)?

27. Roda JC - Ajax 3-0
28. Ajax - Sparta 3-2
29. Ajax - AZ 4-1
30. FC Den Bosch - Ajax 1-1
31. Feyenoord - Ajax 1-1
32. Vitesse - Ajax 3-0
33. Ajax - MVV 1-0
34. FC Utrecht - Ajax 3-1

That's 3 defeats, 2 draws and 3 wins. 11 goals scored, 14 conceded. A pretty disastrous conclusion to a very bad season. The question is: will we do any better this season...?

K.