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Match Report: Willem II 0 - Ajax 1
Feeling of relief prevails in dull away game
05 November: It almost took Ajax an entire year to win another
away game in the league. On 28 november 1999 Ajax won in
Alkmaar against AZ. 343 days later, last Sunday, Ajax won again
on a different pitch than the ArenA one: in Tilburg Ajax beat
Willem II. In all those days Ajax wasn't able to win outside
Amsterdam, a remarkable fact. And although Ajax didn't play
very well, the joy (or perhaps relief) was of course enormous.
It was probably Ajax's weakest away game of this season. But
whereas the games against Heerenveen, Vitesse and PSV all went
wrong in the last part of the game due to bad luck, Ajax now
had Lady Luck on their side. The most lucky thing of the game
was that Willem II didn't seem to have the intention to win the
game anyway.
It's reminiscent of last year: after the terrible 4-0 defeat
against PSV, a discouraged Ajax badly needed a victory three
days later. Willem II was the perfect opponent, allowing Ajax
an easy win in Amsterdam, 3-1.
At that time Adriaanse was coach of Willem II and his name
was mentioned several times to replace Wouters. Nevertheless
Adriaanse more or less 'helped' his colleague and stated
ironically: "I am really glad Ajax won this game, because it's
a good thing for my respected colleague Jan Wouters and his
club."
Not that Adriaanse is about to get sacked, but he and his
team surely needed this victory as well. It was their sixth
away game this season, and three points couldn't possibly harm
the self-confidence of the team or weaken the position of the
coach.
And again it was the 'Ajax of the south' who helped the
'Ajax of the north'. In the very first minute, Willem II found
that with a little pressure the Ajax defense wasn't hard to
break. A gap in the defense left striker Bombarda a huge chance
to score an early goal, but his shot went wide. But after this
one moment of pressure, Willem II didn't even come close to the
Ajax goal, inviting their opponents to become stronger.
Adriaanse saw it a little different and praised his own
tactics: "We made things difficult for Willem II, especially in
their defense, by pressing them right from the start. Therefore
they couldn't easily build up their attack and couldn't reach
their strikers."
After 11 minutes Ajax was the lucky one to score. Out of
their first chance, what wasn't even a chance, Wamberto scored
superbly. A wide shot by Machlas was about to roll into touch
beside the Willem II goal, but Wamberto just tipped it in from
an unbelievably difficult angle.
A few minutes later Wamberto was close to making it 0-2, but
missed in front of an open goal. That was Ajax' best chance of
the game. For the remainder, they couldn't create any truly
strong chances. But Willem II didn't even try to break the
defense of Ajax, which once again used a different line-up from
other games. Due to the injuries of Vierklau and Chivu,
Adriaanse had to modify his defense once more. He admitted that
Van der Meijde as right sided defender (against PSV) wasn't
such a good idea and so he dug up long forgotten Tom Sier from
changing rooom number 2. Also Tim de Cler, who is about to
leave Ajax for Belgian satellite club Germinal Beerschot, was
put in the defense.
Adriaanse was satisfied with the performances of De Cler and
especially of Tom Sier: "He hasn't played for a long time. And
it is really unbelievable that if you haven't played for such a
long time, that you play so well. But he did join all the
trainings this season of course."
But it's fair to say that Willem II didn't make things
difficult for the two defenders. Only in the last 15 minutes of
the game, Willem II tried something to tie the sore. Substitute
Sanou (twice), former Ajax player Schulp and Mariana each got
good chances to equalize, but Grim helped Ajax with some truly
great saves.
This last 15 minutes brought an exciting end to an otherwise
extremely dull game. But none of the Ajax players nor
supporters could care less. Three points in an away game
brought a sigh of great relief all round. (BV)
GOALS:
Referee: Braamhaar
Bookings: Abdellaoui, Hill (Willem II)
Attendance: 14,700
Ajax line-up: Grim; Bergdølmo, Pasanen, De Cler,
Sier; Winter, Galasek, Van der Vaart, Ikedia (64. Van der Gun),
Machlas (79. Van der Meyde), Wamberto
Willem II line-up: De Vlieger; Jaliens, Hill,
Mariana, Prommayon, Caluwe (74. Sanou), Landzaat, Arts, Ceesay
(78. Schulp), Bombarda, Shoukov (41. Abdellaoui)
