Ajaxtalk

Did Martinez read my earlier post? Brings on Mertens on for Dembele and sticks him on the RW and pulls De Bruyne into the AM role.

This should work.

Alright - c'mon man. Why is Fellaini on the wing or on the pitch at all?

Martinez outfoxed by Deschamps.

Belgium go out conceding a goal off of a corner as Feilani lost his marker. I thought both Alderwiereld and Vertonghen had good games. Toby had a nice off foot shot that Lloris had to do a good job saving as he saw it late. 43% of the goals in the whole tournament have come off of free kick situations.

Just back from a very hot Jersey Channel islands. I did not bother to watch England v Sweden on Saturday but knew the score from the bar in the little harbour where we were.

I have to admit on Saturday I really did not feel like celebrating football. The 8th was Sunday but I could only think of
what happened on that Saturday last year.A beautiful sunny day Cricket in Arundel Castle ,came home via another cricket game to see my son's team win and then home. And the headline The World Prays for Appie.Football,even for an Ajax nut like me ,has not been the same since.

I will never apologise for going on about this kid so last Saturday when every other English fan on Jersey was going mad my thoughts were on this beautiful kid. I just raised my glass to Appie and hope he will someday awake and know his family.

He touched my heart, silly old sod that I am.

Last night France pulled a Mourinho plan, similar to that of ManU against us in the Europa League Final in 2017. Belgium did slightly better than us and are out. I can't stand the cynical approach, such as France these days, Italy in past etc

souras84 schreef:Last night France pulled a Mourinho plan, similar to that of ManU against us in the Europa League Final in 2017. Belgium did slightly better than us and are out. I can't stand the cynical approach, such as France these days, Italy in past etc

I was just thinking of that this morning. I think positional switching is definitely required to overcome this. ManU did this to us by blocking out all outlet passes out of defense and leaving Sanchez open. France did the same thing by blocking all outlet passes from defense and letting Chadli have all the possesion.

Zonal Marking says it much nicer than I did - https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 41666.html

Zonal Marking is spot on as usual. 11tegen11 also shows that France had some slight advantages: https://twitter.com/11tegen11?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw I think Martinez made some tactical blunders in this match but in part he had no choice because Meunier was suspended. I didn't think the suspension would be so important but Chadli really was not as dangerous a player. de Bruyne and Lukaku could never get into the game. Pogba was really important defending.

'You are coming home, but without the World Cup'

England had an easy draw and overachieved.Last night they had chances but Croatia were the better side and had more quality in midfield.

IMHO, Colombia with James Rodriguez would've beaten England.

This was the first strong midfield which they faced and their 3-3-2-2 (which to me really is a 3-5-2/5-3-2) was over run in midfield once their wingbacks were pegged back by Crotia's wingers. Also since the wingbacks were pinned back, the Croatian wingbacks had the entire touchline to run up and down on.

Of course, zonalmarking and 11tegen11 write about it much better than I do -
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 43526.html

https://twitter.com/11tegen11/status/10 ... 3166474241

Took the train to Belgium this Saturday to experience some of their World Cup atmosphere during the game against England.

Good to see that Toby Alderweireld is highly appreciated.

Toby made what was at the time a game saving incredible clearance off the goal line in the win vs England. Another cool thing about that game was that Toby, Jan Verthongen, and Thomas Vermaelen were all on the pitch for the final thirty minutes.

I am still a big Vertonghen fan,hope he returns home in the next couple of years.

A Belgium v France final would have seen the 2 best sides playing.

Don't know where to put this but the US sports website fivethirtyeight.com has statistical projections for the current Eredivisie season as well as rankings of all Global football teams. Ajax are ranked #37 in the global ranking: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/gl ... id=irpromo and are projected to win the league this season: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/so ... redivisie/

We shall see if this holds up.

Orange14 schreef:Don't know where to put this but the US sports website fivethirtyeight.com has statistical projections for the current Eredivisie season as well as rankings of all Global football teams. Ajax are ranked #37 in the global ranking: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/gl ... id=irpromo and are projected to win the league this season: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/so ... redivisie/

We shall see if this holds up.

I bet they didn't watch the Heracles match before reaching their conclusion.

Ajax women advance to the round of 16 in the UEFA ladies Champions League, knocking out Sparta Prague. First time they have made it this far.

Marcel Keizer has taken over as manager at Sporting in Portugal. The club was in turmoil at the end of last season with supporters in open revolt against players and management. Club is in third place right now a point above Benfica.

Nations League semi-final draws took place this morning.

The Dutch have been drawn against England and Portugal drew Switzerland. I expect to see a Netherlands vs Portugal final.

Switzerland might surprise you -- they looked pretty good in their last game,

Matthijs de Ligt receives 'Golden Boy Award' (voted best player Under 21 years).

First time ever a defender wins the price.
In 2003 the first edition was won by an Ajax player and now the most recent one also:

https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/ajax-st ... ddfos1syrv

de Ligt deserves this ,simply the best young defender in the world,will be impossible to replace.

Way back in August 2016 , still aged 16,he debuted for Jong Ajax and I just sat watching thinking this kid is way too good for this level.

Peter Bosz has been appointed as the coach of Bayer Leverkusen. Good luck

Ayman schreef:Peter Bosz has been appointed as the coach of Bayer Leverkusen. Good luck

And Frank de Boer may be the next manager of MLS Cup champion Atlanta FC over on this side of the ocean.

Frank has gone to Atlanta .A bit of a cultural shock as he lives in the sleepy old harbour village of Monnickendam north of Amsterdam. He evidently turned down Anderlecht so not sure how American soccer will improve his CV.Taking Anderlecht back to the Belgium title might have been better.