Een Israelische sportjournalist heeft vanochtend een podcast op Facebook gegooid. Kon het niet laten en heb het eventjes snel in het Engels vertaald (want er moest over de hele wereld mee gepronkt worden
). Bij deze:
Dear Ajax,
This is a love letter. The British Telegraph has already written one, I know, but I’m sure they’ve also written them in Bahrein, Macedonia and Haiti.
It is impossible to watch you and not fall in love. You’re special, you’re different, you’re young, you treat the game of football like we would want to be treated ourselves. I mean, we all know the game. Or at least we thought we did. We’ve all accepted the fact that it is not perfect, that there are purposeless long balls, that it has it grey areas, that sometimes result is all that is played for and principles are abandoned, and the bottom line is all that counts. But then you came. In the heat of July, in the second round of qualifications – a stage where most teams come to say hello and then goodbye. But not you. You survived Sturm Graz, and then Standard Liege and then Dynamo Kiev. It was already then, that you entered deeply into the heart.
Because the most beautiful thing about you, Ajax, is neither the way nor the result. With you, the beauty is the way you make to attain the result. And you’ve kept your way, not budging an inch to the right or to the left, not in the Allianz Arena, not in the Bernabeu and not in Torino; not when you were behind, not when it was hot and not when it was cold; it is that way that makes me fall so madly in love with you. Because there is nothing more beautiful than being loyal to oneself and one’s way, and you are loyal to yourself, to your way, to your history and to your tradition and legacy. You believe in your ancestors, in Johan Cruijff and Rinus Michels, you believe in a system, in an ideal, in phrases such as “playing football is simple, but the hardest thing there is is playing simple football”. You’re not only an amazing football team, you’re the entire world. You’re culture. You tell a story, you sing a song, you’re the best play in a town that features Messi, Ronaldo, Man City, Salah and a one-billion-euro stadium. And you, you remain the humblest of them all, and the most beautiful of them all.
Now let’s be honest – you weren’t even supposed to be here, in the semi-finals. 22 years that you haven’t been, and a lot has changed here since then. Football, the football that embraced you during the 90’s, had lost its romance. It was a gradual process, and for teams such as yourself – not from a “top 5 league”, a team that nurtures and cultivates young players, a team that believes that football can be both beautiful and effective – there was no place anymore. It would have been easy to accept that reality, but thank you so much for not giving up! Thank you for standing up and fighting for what you believe in! Thank you for bringing Ten Hag, for spending some cash on Tadic, Neres, Tagliafico and Ziyech, thank you for handing the reigns over to Frenkie and Donny, thank you so much for handing the captain’s band over to Matthijs De Ligt. And, most of all, my beloved Ajax – thank you so much for succeeding in convincing them all, the young and the experienced, the Dutch, the Serbs and the Moroccans, that you know what’s best for them – and what’s best for us.
Now, we know you won’t be staying here forever. You’ll be leaving with the cup at best, and with the memories at the very least. In the summer you’ll probably break up and scatter around, some to Barca and some elsewhere. And that’s okay, its understandable. It’s somewhat sad to think that these are your last moments as a team from which one can’t take his eyes off for a second, but that is your beauty. Because you, Ajax, you’re not like everybody else. You don’t look for shortcuts, you don’t turn your skin, you don’t copy, and you don’t forget who you are and where you come from. It won’t always work, that’s clear. But when it does work, like it does now – I can’t help but fall in love with you.
Is het zo'n dag? Ja het is blijkbaar zo'n dag. 
en de KNVB probeerde er allerlei tradities aan te koppelen... Een vast finale stadion, Hemelvaartsdag als het kan. Maar al een paar jaar terug gooiden ze dat over boord want nr 4 t/m 7 spelen play-offs voor voorronde EL of de nr's 5 t/m 8. Dat is afhankelijk van of Willem II die dennenappel wel of niet wint en van hoe hoog die Tilburgers in de Eredivisie eindigen.
