19 Apr 2013: Ajax - SC Heerenveen

[Cedric]

So, Fischer already scored 9 goals, but did he ever had an assist?

[Cedric]

Ah, finally someone is running. In the stand.

[Tom_]

I don't get why we're so lethargic today...

[ajaxcolombia]

van anholt seriously winning easily his duels on heerenveen's right hand. This is getting worrisome

[King Litti]

C'mon, a late winner now! We haven't seen too many of the in the recent years.

[Cedric]

Eriksen and corners...
That was crap.

[ajaxusa]

Fu-uck...

[SPL]

well a very poor performance they all seemed asleep. Have to say the race is not over . We still need 7 points and playing rubbish like tonight we wont make it . Mind the chasing 3 will still drop points imo. My man of the match for Ajax would be Cillessen he made some good saves , the others were poor.

[Tom_]

Ouch... well I can't say we deserved more than a draw on that effort, although there were two very clear penalties not seen by the ref.

[King Litti]

Not the best Ajax I've seen. Also have to give a bit of credit to van Basten and Heerenveen. They played a decent away game, defended well and came dangerously with a counter a couple of times. Well, the title is still in our own hands, but we gave unnecessary hope to PSV and Vitesse. Got stay more focused. I guess too much euphoria after the PSV win.

[Orange14]

I really hope some team in Europe takes de Jong this summer. This match was like playing 10 against 11 for all the work he did. He had one header that was more due to the good kick into the box than anything he did. Just a bad decision by FdB to leave him on the pitch when we needed some better midfield play. Too many lazy passes by almost everyone once we got into the attacking third and even though we did force Heerenveen to play a lot of defense the needed goals just didn't come. When the two central defenders are the ones pushing the team forward it's a sign that something is really wrong with the player selection. It would be nice if Feyenoord and Vitesse draw this weekend but we cannot rely on anything right now, just need to focus on the task at hand which is winning the final three matches.

Player Ratings:

Cillesen (8) - stopped everything that was thrown at him and couldn't really do anything about Finbogasson's goal which was quite nice, good ball distribution
Blind (7) - solid match again and it's nice to see how easy he handles the cross pitch passes
Moisander (7) - no complaints about his play and he did push the ball forward when the opportunity was there
Alderwiereld (7) - good match and as with Moisander pushed forward
van Rhijn (7.5) - other than the Yellow card, one of his best matches in quite some time, pushed forward and what a wonderful cross to Fischer
Poulsen (6.5) - did some defending but probably was not really needed in this match
Eriksen (6.5) - some wonderful and some woeful plays, we really need more consistency from him
de Jong (4) - should have been subbed out and really was a liability today taking up space and doing nothing
Fischer (7) - well taken goal and created some other good opportunities
Siggthorson (6) - still doesn't hold the ball up as well as he should
Schöne (6) - looked lost on the wing tonight and his passes were often to lazy
Babel (6.5) - was quite lively and did a good job tracking back and helping out when the game was in question
Boerrigter (6.5) - almost brought the winner home for the second week in a row
Hoesen (NR) - not on long enough to create any problems for Heerenveen

The team was on a high after last Sunday's match and tonight's result should rightfully bring them back to earth!

[Kowalczyk]

I thought Eriksen was shit today, especially in the second half. He totally drifted out of it.

Heerenveen could have won this game, actually. We can't complain, so I won't.

K.

[SPL]

Agree with Ko we could have easily lost. Eriksen and de Jong were both very poor imo and talk of 15m plus for Eriksen to transfer to England looks a little off the mark . This puts pressure on us winning at Breda but lets hope for some draws this weekend amongst the other 3.An AZ win tonight and draw at F word tomorrow would make up for last night.

I said we need 7 points but we have a goal difference of plus 15 over Vitesse who can reach 73 points so in effect 6 points would be good enough .

I quess having beaten PSV last week and with 6 wins in a row we were bound to have set back at some stage .

V Rhijn will be banned next week so Ligeon ought to play,this wont help our cause.

[souras84]

Let them go!!! De Jong might be our clutch player BUT he should go and make way for a proper midfielder. Sad but true...

[Kowalczyk]

I'm not worried, though.

After the PSV game De Boer and the players absolutely refused to say that they had just won the title race. They didn't want to talk about the third title in a row or anything like that. "We're a step closer, but we ain't there yet. We haven't won anything yet."

That was good, but the human mind is complicated. Ajax started off well yesterday night and could have made a second goal after the first one, but towards the half-time break they seemed to doze off. The second half was very poor, they were taking it a bit too easy.

Yesterday's result was a wake-up call. We will see the real Ajax next week in Breda, we will not fail there, and we will wrap it all up against Willem II on May 5th.

Absolutely no worries at all.

K.

[SPL]

glad Ko says no worries as PSV currently thrashing AZ 3-0. If we do not beat NAC it will go down to the wire and PSV goal difference is vastly superior to ours. I would not be confident having to go to Groningen needing to win . Lets hope its a draw in Rotterdam tomorrow as we can then forget about those 2 teams

[Orange14]

As the famous US baseball player and sage, Yogi Berra, so famously put it, "it ain't over 'till it's over." I think I jinxed the team yesterday by wearing my Ajax kit this week when I was out for my morning walk. I had put it away since the lat time I wore it last fall Ajax were playing quite poorly. It was getting on to winter anyway and I need more long sleeve stuff to wear (I walk an hour each morning). I was superstitious and when the weather warmed up here in Bethesda I started wearing short sleeve kit tops (teams in my collection are Juventus, Barcelona, Spurs, Liverpool, and Ajax and I have the last four Dutch NT tops as well). To make a long story short, I thought that we iced things with the win in Eindhoven and I could pull the Ajax kit out. Probably the wrong decision and I guarantee to you all that this kit top will not be worn again until the championship is ours!!!!! I'll stick with Spurs & Liverpool who have no chance right now of doing much in the EPL.

Anyway, FdB needs to keep the players focused and take the games one at a time. Destiny is still in their hands.

[souras84]

http://www.goal.com/en/news/462/netherl ... after-ajax

I've never seen something like that in my life as a football fan. Why do we always get into these situations???

[ajaxusa]

http://www.goal.com/en/news/462/netherl ... after-ajax

I've never seen something like that in my life as a football fan. Why do we always get into these situations???

Yes, that is remarkable. I have to say, as an experienced referee... I sympathize with him - sometimes you get obscured and just cannot see something - there's no way he doesn't call the penalty for handling if he could see it - but I am personally against in-game video. I'd rather live with the occasional mistakes than to ruin the flow of soccer.

[Orange14]

I'm also against video replay as it would cause the game to stop and start too much (unless it's restricted to say one challenge per half by each team). Officiating decisions even out during the course of the season and while we don't like it when an obvious decision goes against our team it's just part of the appeal of football. Ajax should have played much better on Friday so that it didn't come down to a non-penalty call against Heerenveen.

[zeux]

Soccer is becoming a backward game.

[aveslacker]

I'm also against video replay as it would cause the game to stop and start too much (unless it's restricted to say one challenge per half by each team). Officiating decisions even out during the course of the season and while we don't like it when an obvious decision goes against our team it's just part of the appeal of football. Ajax should have played much better on Friday so that it didn't come down to a non-penalty call against Heerenveen.

Pshaw. Look at the Mexico-Argentina game in the last World Cup. Argentina scored a goal from a clearly offside position (it had to have been at least three yards offside) and the Mexican players spent several minutes arguing with the ref and the linesman about the call. Had there been a video replay option, the issue could have been decided in less than a minute.

There are a great many things in the course of a game that disrupt its flow. Think about the last five minutes of a game in the Serie A when a team is winning 1-0. How many times does someone from the team that is ahead suddenly get hit by a sniper when an opposing player gets near him? Cue 2-3 minutes of writhing on the ground, having a trainer come out with some magic spray, etc. The idea of flow is a myth. Soccer games are always getting interrupted by the referee's whistle. Adding in a reply system that will ensure the correct call is made more often does not need to ruin this mythical flow any more than what already happens day in, day out in soccer.

And sorry, but calls do not even out over the course of a season. I, for one, don't think the appeal of soccer is that your team might get screwed on any given day by an incompetent official. And the line of reasoning that excuses poor officiating by saying "sure, the ref sucked, but the players should have played better so it wouldn't have mattered" is a tad disingenuous. It would be like going to trial with an incompetent attorney defending you but justifying it by saying, "well, sure my lawyer couldn't defend me for shit, but I never would have been accused of rape if I hadn't been walking by that bar late at night when that woman came out." You wouldn't excuse your attorney for failing to do his job, nor should anyone excuse the incompetence of a referee simply by saying that, ehh, our team should have played better. A referee at the highest level is a professional and everyone should expect him to get it right. And if he can't, then there are solutions, like replay or more officials, that will help preserve the integrity of the game. And lest we forget, there are major corruption clouds hanging over UEFA matches right now (http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 81592.html).

Considering how corrupt soccer is, we should be embracing every effort to make it more transparent, on the pitch and off.

Edited to add that rugby, like soccer, is a game of two halves without any interruptions. It has adopted some forms of instant replay and no one seems to be complaining about the flow of a rugby game being interrupted.

[zeux]

I'm also against video replay as it would cause the game to stop and start too much (unless it's restricted to say one challenge per half by each team). Officiating decisions even out during the course of the season and while we don't like it when an obvious decision goes against our team it's just part of the appeal of football. Ajax should have played much better on Friday so that it didn't come down to a non-penalty call against Heerenveen.

Pshaw. Look at the Mexico-Argentina game in the last World Cup. Argentina scored a goal from a clearly offside position (it had to have been at least three yards offside) and the Mexican players spent several minutes arguing with the ref and the linesman about the call. Had there been a video replay option, the issue could have been decided in less than a minute.

There are a great many things in the course of a game that disrupt its flow. Think about the last five minutes of a game in the Serie A when a team is winning 1-0. How many times does someone from the team that is ahead suddenly get hit by a sniper when an opposing player gets near him? Cue 2-3 minutes of writhing on the ground, having a trainer come out with some magic spray, etc. The idea of flow is a myth. Soccer games are always getting interrupted by the referee's whistle. Adding in a reply system that will ensure the correct call is made more often does not need to ruin this mythical flow any more than what already happens day in, day out in soccer.

And sorry, but calls do not even out over the course of a season. I, for one, don't think the appeal of soccer is that your team might get screwed on any given day by an incompetent official. And the line of reasoning that excuses poor officiating by saying "sure, the ref sucked, but the players should have played better so it wouldn't have mattered" is a tad disingenuous. It would be like going to trial with an incompetent attorney defending you but justifying it by saying, "well, sure my lawyer couldn't defend me for shit, but I never would have been accused of rape if I hadn't been walking by that bar late at night when that woman came out." You wouldn't excuse your attorney for failing to do his job, nor should anyone excuse the incompetence of a referee simply by saying that, ehh, our team should have played better. A referee at the highest level is a professional and everyone should expect him to get it right. And if he can't, then there are solutions, like replay or more officials, that will help preserve the integrity of the game. And lest we forget, there are major corruption clouds hanging over UEFA matches right now (http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 81592.html).

Considering how corrupt soccer is, we should be embracing every effort to make it more transparent, on the pitch and off.

Edited to add that rugby, like soccer, is a game of two halves without any interruptions. It has adopted some forms of instant replay and no one seems to be complaining about the flow of a rugby game being interrupted.

Amen.

And you can throw in Tennis, American Football and Hockey (both on the ice and the field) to strengthen your point.

[Philippe]

We need no more and no less than 6 points out of the remaining 3 games. Meaning we need to win at least two of them.

[Dubbel]

And you can throw in Tennis, American Football and Hockey (both on the ice and the field) to strengthen your point.

American Football is a game of two halves without any interruptions???? And tennis too?

Not quite sure how u meant that...