20 Mar 2005: Ajax - PSV

Bericht door **Kowalczyk** » vr mar 11, 2005 12:44 pm

Ajax USA will be there! Nine days to go...

NOS Teletekst now announces that the game is sold out.

K.

Boomer · Bericht door **Boomer** » vr mar 11, 2005 1:22 pm

I'll be there too.

My first Ajax game live and on my birthday as well :)

Canne wait :xyxthumbs: :yes:

Bericht door **Kowalczyk** » vr mar 11, 2005 1:28 pm

Boomer schreef:I'll be there too.

My first Ajax game live and on my birthday as well :)

Canne wait :xyxthumbs: :yes:

Hang on... Are you in our group - or did you make your own arrangements?

K.

DanK · Bericht door **DanK** » vr mar 11, 2005 10:35 pm

Sold out...this should be awsome. Fingers crossed we see some result for Ajax. This will be my 3rd football game in Holland, but my first Ajax game. Can't wait.

Looking forward to catching up with the group.

Cheers

GangstaRiB · Bericht door **GangstaRiB** » zo mar 13, 2005 10:48 pm

DanK schreef:Sold out...this should be awsome. Fingers crossed we see some result for Ajax. This will be my 3rd football game in Holland, but my first Ajax game. Can't wait.

Looking forward to catching up with the group.

Cheers

You really picked the best game :nooo:

Blind3 · Bericht door **Blind3** » zo mar 13, 2005 10:59 pm

I wish all the attendees a great day out next Sunday.Look forward to catching up with y'all in '06.

Frans · Bericht door **Frans** » ma mar 14, 2005 6:32 am

What was being said on the AjaxUSA board, about PSV, back in July/August?

I think PSV will not compete for the title.

My prediction is that PSV will have difficulties hanging on to a decent spot in the Eredivisie as well (top three that is).

Because they're nothing more than a bunch of daft wankers in Europe. Always have been, always will be.

HAHAHAHA.

Well, At least we got to laugh for a couple of months. The old Optimist-O-Meter was running so high back then. Funny how things change. Well, not very funny at all. :pukey:

Anyway, for the game, I think the chances of Ajax winning are definitely higher than 1%. Maybe 1.7%. Perhaps even 2.1% if Grygera and Babel are in the starting lineup. Actually, I truly believe Ajax has a decent shot at winning. Sure, they're playing shit, but they have been winning, which is still on par with playing brilliantly and losing.

Might even see the game on TV, if espn doesn't make another 'interesting' programming decision.

Bericht door **Kowalczyk** » ma mar 14, 2005 6:47 am

Frans schreef:What was being said on the AjaxUSA board, about PSV, back in July/August?

I know, I know - and every Dutch sports journalist predicted the same thing. No-one ever expected PSV to be a serious candidate for the title. Turns out they are pretty much the only one.

By the way: I, for one, admitted many times that I have totally and absolutely underestimated PSV's qualities for this season. I was right about Feyenoord (will not compete and not finish higher than Ajax, in spite of the brief Gullit hype), but also blatantly wrong about PSV.

They've been extremely smart on the trsnafer market: Farfan, Alex, Beasley... we did not really know them, but it turns out that they put a handful of pretty damn' good players in their shopping basket. Ajax had the same thing a few years ago: Maxwell, Trabelsi, Mido and Zlatan. The whole country thought that they were nothing special, but they took Holland and Europe by surprise. The 'new and improved' PSV are doing the same thing now.

K.

The Purple Cow · Bericht door **The Purple Cow** » wo mar 16, 2005 11:01 am

Pre-season, I was similarly dismissive of PSV over on onetouchfootball.com, if i remember correctly I wrote; "...nobody here seriously doubts that this season the championship is Ajax's to lose."

What an idiot.

Bericht door **Kowalczyk** » wo mar 16, 2005 1:05 pm

Two days ago Ajax decided to sell 200 extra tickets for Ajax vs PSV, namely 200 seats with an impaired view that are not normally sold. The tickets went on sale for only 8.75 euros each. Ajax.nl now reports that all of these extra tickets have been sold. It will be one packed stadium on Sunday...

K.

LucaS · Bericht door **LucaS** » wo mar 16, 2005 1:08 pm

With some expectance and positive feelings too. Sundays game will probably be too early, but it feels like a fresh new start with the right man on the right spot!

Over Pasanens Head · Bericht door **Over Pasanens Head** » wo mar 16, 2005 1:58 pm

The Purple Cow schreef:Pre-season, I was similarly dismissive of PSV over on onetouchfootball.com, if i remember correctly I wrote; "...nobody here seriously doubts that this season the championship is Ajax's to lose."

What an idiot.

You are not an idiot PC - you called it 100% correctly in that Ajax has thrown it away and PSV has taken advantage

Philippe · Bericht door **Philippe** » do mar 17, 2005 5:01 pm

for the coming game : Babel or Charisteas ? Mitea or Boukhari ? van der Vaart or not van der Vaart ?

john_stein · Bericht door **john_stein** » do mar 17, 2005 8:00 pm

If I could pick from Babel and Charisteas I would choose Babel because of all the progress he has made and most importantly the GOALS he has scored. But Charisteas is always dangerous for defenders. One thing I would like to see from Charisteas is attitude, a desire to score goals. I've seen him lost on the field in the last few games. Let's remind him that he is not the only forward Ajax has and that he has to win a place in the starting 11 as all the other players. On today's practice Charisteas was on the substitute team with Anastaciou so that could give us an idea of what will happen against psv.
Mitea or Boukhari...well for me that depends on who is better fit for the game. I like the way Mitea plays, fast, good technique and always looking to the goal, but lately he hasn't played that well, in fact he hasnt played at all. So for this game I would choose Boukhari just because he has been playing the last games.
I think we should play with Van der Vaart. I consider him a great player, we will start realising how important he is when he goes to another club. Plus, he will go back to that 10 position he likes so much, so maybe this is his chance to show how valuable he really is.
One more thing, does anybody know if Stekelenburg is ready to play?. And if he is, the question obviously is: Stekelenburg or Lobont?

Philippe · Bericht door **Philippe** » vr mar 18, 2005 9:02 am

my choice is Stekelenburg

aveslacker · Bericht door **aveslacker** » vr mar 18, 2005 3:41 pm

john_stein schreef:If I could pick from Babel and Charisteas I would choose Babel because of all the progress he has made and most importantly the GOALS he has scored. But Charisteas is always dangerous for defenders. One thing I would like to see from Charisteas is attitude, a desire to score goals. I've seen him lost on the field in the last few games. Let's remind him that he is not the only forward Ajax has and that he has to win a place in the starting 11 as all the other players.

I think we should play with Van der Vaart. I consider him a great player, we will start realising how important he is when he goes to another club. Plus, he will go back to that 10 position he likes so much, so maybe this is his chance to show how valuable he really is.
One more thing, does anybody know if Stekelenburg is ready to play?. And if he is, the question obviously is: Stekelenburg or Lobont?

From what I've seen, Babel is still quite raw, and Charisteas has played in a few pressure-cooker games. Agree that he could use more attitude, but my (admittedly limited) impression is that Babel still needs to learn the game, in other words, to allow his mind to catch up to his physical skills.

As for VdV, I wouldn't be surprised if his game improves towards the end of the season, if for no other reason than he will want to show prospective buyers (who all have their ears perked up now that he's said he wants to be sold at the end of the season) that he has the skillz.

Philippe · Bericht door **Philippe** » zo mar 20, 2005 1:00 pm

0-1 26' min ! hell !

SPL · Bericht door **SPL** » zo mar 20, 2005 1:46 pm

2-0 down at half time. Don't see us coming back into the game.

After today we can only hope for third place and UEFA Cup next season.

carcajou · Bericht door **carcajou** » zo mar 20, 2005 2:04 pm

4-0........... Seems like PSV is the new Milan AC or something. The title is theirs, them fuckers...

Mag · Bericht door **Mag** » zo mar 20, 2005 3:06 pm

what was happening? poor Ajax 4 goals beaten surely scared me. how can i trust Danny Blind? first match under his coach will be remembered as a disaster, is it a bad sign? my doubts have increased ..... i suppose if we gave back to Krol this time it would be better... :onfire:

Venezuelan Ajacied · Bericht door **Venezuelan Ajacied** » zo mar 20, 2005 3:26 pm

Man what a disaster, i mean we cant say it was a real surprise but still you would think that in a game like this in front off the home crowd our team would give a lot more than what i saw, i don´t know if this team has a heart ore guts even.It´s just horrible,terrible for gods sake PSV dident even run over us, they dident overdominate Ajax and still beat us by four in a totally calm almost without efort kind of way.
Ajax has lost its path,football style and identity:

Defense: remarkably the best ofensive players are defenders(escude,trabelsi,heitinga) yet they defend horribly and at times look completley dumb and lost on the field.

Midfield: Maduro at defensive-mid dosent seem to have enough wit strength and comanding abilities to play that positión y believe he played as a defender in young ajax(not sure) and thats where he should stay, we need Galasek back soon.
In the ofensive mid there is just a total lack of chemistry(although that problem goes with the whole team too).I am not gona name players because whoever you put in the position is the same, the fact is that the only thing they do is little unofensive pases between each other, they rarely make through pases and never ever make a run towards the goal o and lets not forget that they can´t dribble through anybody, there is a total lack of vertical play, ajax plays too horizontaly(excuse my gramar) and are simply predictable. And ajax atack goes something like this:

1)short pass to midfield 1) Short pass to winger
Defense Midfield:
2) Long Ball(loose ball) 2) Bad short pass too forward

1)Bad Cross(loose ball) 1) do nothing
Winger: Striker:
2)Unsucsesful dribling atempt(loose ball) 2) unable to hold ball

Hmmm kind of confusing oh well

In short the midfield lacks creativity( something they use to have)

Wingers: our left side plain stinks, rosales on the right has been out of form lately, to make it short the wingers dont do their job: dribble by a defender and make a decent cross.

Striker: Babel seems to have cought the charisteas efect, today he was as clumsy as a broomstick and never was able too hold on to the ball, couldent make a good pass nor dribble well(wich is strange for him)

Coach:Would expect a more agresive aproach by blind, the changes came in way too late to have somewhat of an effect, disapointing i bet for him and for us, i remember something koeman said something like when the team is not working you have to make BIG changes i thought Blind would sort off do this but he maintained the same formation and players from the past week you can see the result. Anyways it was a hard game and its too early too judge Blind he just started on the wrong foot.

PSV: Showed why they are making such a big run in the champions league (marvelous first goal) Solid as a rock, not flashy but highly effective football. Champs for sure.

The Referee: As horrible as Ajax play i would say that even worse, gave PSV a nonexistant penalty and by what the comentators off ESPN said gave an Extra minute off aded time in the first half that led to the second goal.

Damn im tired of writing, to end this newspaper i´ll say that Ajax knew what was coming we also knew what was coming we just dident want to accept it. See you in the Uefa cup next year X'C

Philippe · Bericht door **Philippe** » zo mar 20, 2005 4:12 pm

Carcajou schreef:4-0........... Seems like PSV is the new Milan AC or something.

I would rather say that we are the new Den Bosch or something; we will not even catch up with AZ; ruins, just ruins, after 3 seasons of CL; a terrible waste !

who will sack the Board ?

tom · Bericht door **tom** » zo mar 20, 2005 4:51 pm

It was a disaster, we can't play like we did today and we can't loose 4-0 against PSV in the ArenA. We all know that. What I'm going to say may sound weird but this is what I felt after the game: This might just be the result we needed. This whole season has been a complete disaster and although we've managed to get lots of wins in these last months the truth is those results do not reflect what truly is going on in Ajax. This team has lost its heart, its football, its identity, we see players with absolutly no attitude on the field, its like they dont really give a damn about the team. And you know why? because for the last 3 years we have spoiled these kids. We made them believe that they are a new golden generation, they got used to going to the CL and the fact that they got there was enough for them. And the whole team depended last season in one key player: Zlatan. Having him in Ajax was great, his goals, his plays, he became so important that once he left the team never recovered its level it all went downards. But we should add the fact that Koeman made a mess with the team. So today we saw the true level of Ajax, a team with no ideas and especially TOO PREDICTABLE. But believe me its all going to improve starting today. I think this marks a beginning of a new process in Ajax, a recovery mission that has to be led by Blind who was all my support. This result hurts but we need to face the reality and the reality is: this season died today, but a new one and a new Ajax has to begin right now.

Venezuelan Ajacied · Bericht door **Venezuelan Ajacied** » zo mar 20, 2005 5:26 pm

Nice to see we have the exact same opinion, Cheers :alc: [/quote]

The Purple Cow · Bericht door **The Purple Cow** » zo mar 20, 2005 5:29 pm

I think you are right, this was the result Ajax needed.

It's just difficult to know where to look for good news.

Ajax's defence was naive, and positonaly a disaster. Maxwell was an umitigated catastrophy, Heitinnga, was just Heitinga, and poor old SQD had one of his rare off days. Fair play to Trabelsi who was routinely excellent. Boggers, I'm not sure about. Oddly for a goalie who lost 0 - 4, he didn't have a lot to do.

The midfield gave new meaning to the term 'lightweight.' I mean who in their right minds would pick the likes of Sneijder, VdV and Maduro to play against the tough experienced, P$V midfield?

MEMO TO DANNY BLIND: There is no place for Sneijder and VdV in the same football team!

And as for our powder-puff strikeforce, I don't know where to begin. Rosales is tricky and skillful, but his final ball is routinely crap. Boukhari is skillfull but seems paralysed by fear of the fans reaction.

(On a related note, me and the guys decided today we are going to request to move our season-ticket places away from Vak 420, because we are so sick of the racist and Islamophoboc Ajax fans we are expected to sit next too.)

Against the P$V defence Babel looked like a 12 year old boy playing against full-grown men. Embarrasing.

One good piece of news now I think about it, is that Pienaar was a huge improvement over VdV at number 10. That's at least something we can take with us.