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Match Report: Ajax youngsters not ready for the big time

	Feyenoord's Patrick Paauwe celebrates with Ebi Smolarek after scoring against Ajax. [source: ANP]

Last Sunday (against Heerenveen) Ajax played probably their best match of this season. But this good dress rehearsal for the big clash with Feyenoord didn't get the right continuation today. The performance of Ajax in Rotterdam was very poor and the 3-1 defeat can't even be seen as a good reflection of the superiority of Feyenoord. If the Rotterdammers had been more efficient with their chances the game could easily have ended with twice as much goals for Feyenoord.

Whereas Ajax had a successful period preceding this match, Feyenoord went through a tough period. They won their league games with the greatest difficulties and a few days ago they were kicked out the UEFA tournament by the number 18 of the German League, VFB Stuttgart. This combined with the thought that they hadn't beaten Ajax in Rotterdam over the last 6 years made the hope of a good result even worse.

But the fear turned out to be unnecessary. Feyenoord couldn't have got a better opponent to help their out of their bad period than Ajax this Sunday. It was true that Ajax missed important players like Chivu and Machlas (and to a lesser degree Bergdølmo) but there was enough quality in the selection to take care of that problem. Winter and Witschge who were left out of the line-up last Sunday against Heerenveen could have compensated the lack of experience in the team. But Adriaanse didn't see it that way. Instead of experience he chose for the 18-year old Hersi. It was Hersi's second performance in Ajax and the first time right from the start.

Together with Van der Vaart (17), Pasanen (20), Van der Gun (21), Kanu (21) and De Cler (22) an extremely young Ajax had to deal with experienced Feyenoorders. Although Feyenoord have some teenagers as well, the frame of this team plays together for quite a long time now. Nevertheless Adriaanse saw no reason to bring in Winter or Witschge. After the match he stated: "Early this season we played together with Winter and Witschge also a match in Rotterdam. Against Sparta we lost with 3-0"

Right indeed, but one can really wonder if Winter on the midfield wouldn't have given the young team more balance and more rest. Winter (and also Witschge) knows when to hold the ball for more than one second, or pass the ball back in order to create more ball posssion and therefore more rest. Instead of that Ajax played wild and uncontrolled trying to reach the Feyenoord goal as quick as possible. This was accompanied by lots of wrong passes and over and over again loss of the ball.

The start of Ajax was good. Only after 2 minutes Van der Vaart fired a great shot at the Feyenoord goal, but he was unlucky that the referee already had blown his whistle due to a hands ball of Hersi. Van der Vaart showed his great talent a few minutes later again, as he fired another good shot. Feyenoord goalie Dudek had problems stopping the ball and an attentive Wamberto scored in the rebound. This was a 100% goal, but the lines man 'saw' Wamberto off-side so the referee had no other option than to cancel the goal.

From that time on, Ajax got weaker and weaker and let the Feyenoorders become stronger and stronger. The best chances were definitely for Feyenoord. First it was Van Wonderen who could easily walk through the weak defense of Ajax, but luckily stumbled over the ball.

Minutes later Pasanen gave Kalou a huge chance to score. The Fin blundered when he intercept a cross pass in the penalty box. Instead of kicking the ball meters away he handed it on a silver platter to Kalou who failed to take advantage of this. And another minute later it was Pasanen again who committed a serious blunder. Kalou easily snatched the ball from him and created a good scoring chance, but failed again. Via Paauwe Feyenoord got another good chance, but it had to wait until the 25th minute to score their first goal. A double pass between Smolarek and Bosvelt ended in a cross pass right in front of the Ajax goal. Between two Ajax defenders Kalou was as free as a bird and headed the 1-0.

Ajax was lucky that it was only 1-0 at half time, so they had 15 minutes to discuss the leaky defense and try to repair it with some changes. But Adriaanse didn't change the team at all, so the Feyenoord push continued in the second half. After already 7 minutes Feyenoord scored his second goal. Midfielder Patrick Paauwe could easily walk through the Ajax defense and score with not even such a tough shot. But Grim was probably too surprised to react adequately. Ten minutes later Grim again didn't react very well when Tomasson had a free passage to the Ajax goal. Grim ran outside the penaly box to intercept the ball, but missed it. Tomasson didn't hesitate and fired the ball from a great distance into the empty goal ('63).

In the mean time Ajax didn't even create one chance to give their supporters a glance of hope that the game will end with a good result. One thing was sure this afternoon: Ajax wouldn't score anymore. And so the only goal Ajax got was also scored by a Feyenoorder. A wide shot by Van der Meijde - who had replaced De Cler - accidently hit the head of Feyenoorder De Haan by which the ball went into the Feyenoord goal ('66).

The only chance Ajax got after this was a miserable shot by Arveladze. It was Feyenoord who again got the best chances but luckily didn't make it worse. (BV)

GOALS

• 1-0 Bonaventura Kalou (25)
• 2-0 Patrick Paauwe (52)
• 3-0 Jon Dahl Tomasson (63)
• 3-1 Ferry de Haan (o.g) (66)

Referee: Uilenberg
Attendance: 45,000
Ajax line-up: Grim; Kanu, Pasanen, De Cler (61. Van der Meyde) en Sier; Hersi, Galásek en Van der Vaart, Van der Gun, Arveladze en Wamberto. Feyenoord line-up: Dudek; Emerton, Van Wonderen, De Haan en Tininho; Bosvelt, Tomasson en Paauwe; Smolarek, Kalou en Leonardo (90. Jochemsen).