19 Mar 2008: PSV - Ajax

[666]

You brought your laptop, didn't you? If not, go buy one. They're cheap over there, especially now that the dollar is a third world currency. Half-time score: US$1 = 64 cents. Might be 63 c by the time you reach the computer store.

Fire up your fresh-bought WiFi and go watch the game on one of the many P2P tv channels out there. Details on http://voetbal.moo.no .

Flying out of JFK? Usually a stupid choice, but today it works out to your advantage (as the maestro said: elk nadeel hep se voordeel). Your flight will be delayed by at least an hour so you won't have to miss a single second of the second half. Should your flight depart on time by accident, just shout out and one of the forum regulars will send out a bomb threat so you'll have plenty of time to post a match report on ajaxusa.

[Van basten]

Interesting who will replays Gabri in starting line-up

P.s. I just hope that my sopcast will work better then it was this sunday

[aveslacker]

PSV: Gomes; Kromkamp, Alcides, Salcido, Marcellis; Bakkal, Simons, Méndez, Dzsudzsak; Farfán, Koevermans.
Wissels: Roorda, Zonneveld, Väyrynen, Lazovic, Aissati, Rajkovic, Culina.

Ajax: Gentenaar; Silva, Heitinga, Vermaelen, Vertonghen; Lindgren, Davids, Emanuelson, Leonardo, Huntelaar, Suarez.
Wissels: Van Duin, Kuffour, Kennedy, Rommedahl, Ogararu, Sarpong, Perez

Source: Ajax.nl

[DanK]

Geez. Boring...0-0. It had the feel at times of lets just leave the 4 points and see what we can get from the other games.

Not the end of the world though. Both teams have some tough games ahead. 4 points is still better than 6. We just have to keep winning.

Oh yeah, and Gomes is a wanker!

[SPL]

Managed to see most of the second half. (Sopcast was crap again in the first half just like Sunday)Not the best game we have seen
but a point in lightbulb land is ok.

Wonder if Ko has got a text of the result yet ???

[SE6Ajacied]

Oh yeah, and Gomes is a wanker!

It must be something about Brazilian keepers. Has Gomes been taking lessons from Dida (against Celtic)?!

It was a bit of a zzzz-fest that wasn't it. Shall we text Ko and tell him he missed a 9 goal thriller . Not exactly the game of the season that it deserved to be.

[bryan]

Very odd substitution by Adrie, taking off Leonardo and Suarez, who were keeping PSV busy at the back. The match was lost after that.

Good to see Leonardo performing well and working very hard.

[ozzerdibazio]

I think Luque should be on the bench at least. Does anybody have an info on what will happen to him?

He put in some good performancs before. He and Suarez were showing realy potential; surely Sarpong shouldn't get the nod ahead of him.

A bit off topic but.....

[DanK]

Very odd substitution by Adrie, taking off Leonardo and Suarez, who were keeping PSV busy at the back. The match was lost after that.

Good to see Leonardo performing well and working very hard.

For the (albeit stop start) coverage that I saw on SopCast, Suarez actually looked one of the most likely to score. Sure it was a typical Suarez game (ie: sometimes overdoing it or stuffing up the easy things), but he is one of those players that can change a game.

PSV were letting him come to them, so it did seem like an odd choice. I don't see how bringing on Perez for him made any difference and actually might have made things worse.

Anyway, its better than a loss. 4 points is still easily reachable. Both teams have hard games to come.

[Manneken Pis]

My summary is;

P$V's defence was stronger than Ajax's attack.

[Kowalczyk]

Well, we tried, but it didn't work. You can hardly blame a football team for booking a 0-0 result in Eindhoven.

By the way: last season, after 29 games, the gap was 5 points and PSV had a better goal differential. Now it's 4, with Ajax having a better goal differential.

K.

[Cedric]

And PSV have still two games against Fiorentina...

But now, let's look at the other side : last year, PSV was in crisis, just received a 5-1 spanking, whereas Ajax had easier games left to play than this year. And I'm a bit worried to see that, again, the last game of PSV is against Vitesse...

[DanK]

Well, we tried, but it didn't work. You can hardly blame a football team for booking a 0-0 result in Eindhoven.

By the way: last season, after 29 games, the gap was 5 points and PSV had a better goal differential. Now it's 4, with Ajax having a better goal differential.

K.

0-0 is OK in my book. I think we can do it. If we had lost, it would have been tough and our confidence would have been down. At the moment its still PSV's to lose, but I have faith that we can keep the pressure up.

This week will tell.

[Kowalczyk]

I don't really believe in a title. I don't think we'll win it. But that doesn't have to do with the gap of four points. The gap is not the problem. In every other league I would have said: that's still wide open.

The reason that I don't really believe in a title is the fact that I don't really believe in Ajax. For the umpteenth season in a row I think PSV are not necessarily better, but they're more solid, more mature, it's harder to score goals against them and (in Europe, in particular) they know how to stand tall and get a result.

In the Dutch zones some Ajax fans were slagging PSV off for the way they played against Spurs (negative, nothing special, etc.). I think Spurs (or any other Premiership side) would have absolutely hammered Ajax. 3-0, 4-0 at least. We crumble in games like that (in fact: we also crumble against FC Copenhagen or Slavia Prague), whereas PSV can step forward and do the business.

The last time we had that quality was in the 2002-2003 Champions League campaign.

K.

[ajaxusa]

I was impressed with Ajax. (I haven't seen many games this year, and maybe this is just wishful thinking but) they seem to have raised the level of their game. They were most definitely the aggressor last night. They played with more intensity, more desire than PSV. More skill too. True, PSV has a stalwart defense and it was always going to be tough for Ajax to crack through it. But they created reasonable chances and with a bit of luck could have scored. Of course, PSV had a couple of golden opportunities, too. But their positive phases were fewer and of shorter duration.

Ajax' biggest failing on the night was being too conservative for big parts of the game. They sometimes played as if you get points for possession in your own half...

If I were a PSV fan I'd be both embarrassed - PSV were passive, sitting back, absorbing the attack, hoping rather than commanding that things go their way - and relieved. Huntelaar could very easily have scored in the 87th minute. That was a REAL chance.

Also, I have to say... Gomes is probably the best keeper in the Eredivisie (sorry, Steks), but he is a bastard. Where is the man's pride?

I for one was proud of the way Ajax played, for much of the game, anyway. I don't think you can fault their commitment or desire.

And I did not think it was a boring game! I was on the edge of the couch, yelling at the TV every 30 seconds... I haven't felt so much nervousness in my stomach since the last Presidential election. And this result wasn't nearly as disastrous.

[GangstaRiB]

I was impressed with Ajax. (I haven't seen many games this year, and maybe this is just wishful thinking but) they seem to have raised the level of their game. They were most definitely the aggressor last night. They played with more intensity, more desire than PSV. More skill too. True, PSV has a stalwart defense and it was always going to be tough for Ajax to crack through it. But they created reasonable chances and with a bit of luck could have scored. Of course, PSV had a couple of golden opportunities, too. But their positive phases were fewer and of shorter duration.

Ajax' biggest failing on the night was being too conservative for big parts of the game. They sometimes played as if you get points for possession in your own half...

If I were a PSV fan I'd be both embarrassed - PSV were passive, sitting back, absorbing the attack, hoping rather than commanding that things go their way - and relieved. Huntelaar could very easily have scored in the 87th minute. That was a REAL chance.

Also, I have to say... Gomes is probably the best keeper in the Eredivisie (sorry, Steks), but he is a bastard. Where is the man's pride?

I for one was proud of the way Ajax played, for much of the game, anyway. I don't think you can fault their commitment or desire.

And I did not think it was a boring game! I was on the edge of the couch, yelling at the TV every 30 seconds... I haven't felt so much nervousness in my stomach since the last Presidential election. And this result wasn't nearly as disastrous.

I agree with you. I said to my friends when we were watching: if we play every game with the same concentration as we had against psv, we will be champions in the end.

[bryan]

They sometimes played as if you get points for possession in your own half...

yeah, but they've been doing this shit for years.

1-0 down, 3 minutes to go, pass it back to the goalkeeper... infuriating