Van basten schreef:
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I find the observations (or shall we say: accusations) of the authot a bit unfair, to say the least.
Firstly (but this is my personal opinion), what's the definition ugly football? If ugly 'football' = 'defensive, physical football', yes, then Ajax's win in Enschede was 'ugly'. My definition of 'ugly football' however, is football by a team absolutely incapable of playing the game according to plan.
Last season's Ajax team played ugly football, in my opinion. In theory they played in a 4-3-3 and tried to attack. In practice, however, they couldn't string more than two proper passes together and seemed to have absolutely no clue whatsoever. There was no structure, no idea of any kind and - in practice - no system (offensive, defensive, 4-3-3, 4-4-2, whatever - I didn't recognize any formation or plan in Ajax's football in the first place).
Now
that's what I call ugly. You may not like Italian
catenaccio, but the mighty Italian sides that played catenaccio with style, calm and a certain cool, were most definitely not uglier than the sorry lot that called itself Ajax last season. I like it when a team very clearly have a plan (offensive or defensive) and the power to impose their will on the opposition and dictate the game. Football can never, absolutely
never be 'pretty' or 'beautiful' when something goes wrong every ten seconds (Ajax, last season).
That's why I actually enjoyed Twente vs Ajax. Ajax did not have the personnel to attack properly and even their defending was not flawless, but they had a plan, they were the underdogs (mind you: ten injured, one suspended) and they refused to be overrun. There was a formation, everybody had their own instructions - and they
went for it, with a passion that I hardly ever saw last season. I prefer that over last season's so-called offensive football. A team that can not play a game according to plan is not 'offensive' (?) or 'defensive' (?), but simply shit.
Also: Ajax did not
play this ugly against Roda and Groningen. They did
not play this ugly in De Kuip and at home against Vitesse. In those games they attacked, and they did it reasonably well. In all of those games they could have scored three, four more goals they they did.
But for the two games in the east (Heracles and Twente away) the list of injured players was getting so f*cking insanely long that Van Basten decided: hey, we're gonna do it in a different way this week, we're not gonna walk into the old trap with eyes wide open. And I loved it, because I saw
team spirit (which is not something you get to see every weekend, as an Ajax fan).
No, I don't want Ajax to play like they did in Enschede every week. But I totally understand what Van Basten was thinking in this specific case. Last season we played Twente four times - and never beat them. This time we were without our 'star player' (Suárez) and also without the 'creative forces' that we purchased (Sulejmani, Aissati). And that's only
three of the players we were missing, out of
eleven.
Come on. Give us a break. Even against Twente we weren't as ugly as PSV in their average game...
K.
