Non-performance in Nijmegen: NEC 1, Ajax 0
1 (0) - 0
(0)
Eredivisie
McDos Goffert Stadium, Nijmegen
Sunday, 06 November, 2005
In default of Julien Escudé (out of favour) and
Tomás Galásek (injured) Zdenek Grygera wore the
captain's armband in Nijmegen's Goffert Stadium today. An
understandable choice: if the attitude of one Ajax
player was an example to many team-mates so far,
it was that of the hard-working and mostly flawless Czech.
After Ajax's embarrassing 1-0 defeat at NEC, which made Ajax
slide further downhill to the center group of the Dutch
Eredivisie, Grygera was one of the Ajacieden (alongside
head-coach Danny Blind and midfielder Wesley Sneijder) to show
a sense of responsibility: the threesome got off the team bus
to face the horde of angry and disappointed supporters
that was waiting for them in front of the Amsterdam ArenA.
Blind, Sneijder and Grygera accompanied them to the Supporters'
Home. Not only the two Dutchmen, but Grygera too, took the
microphone and spoke to the fans about the current
crisis. Like a real captain should.
They had a lot to explain.
A quick update of the facts... Ajax won only four out of
their eleven league games so far, dropped more points (18)
than they grabbed (15), netted only 15 times and conceded 12
goals. They did not book a single win in their last four
Eredivisie matches, in which not a single goal was
scored. More than 375 goalless minutes ticked away since
Ajax's last Eredivisie goal, making for Ajax's longest
period of drought in Eredivisie history (the old
record: 373 minutes without a goal in
1999-2000). After eleven matches Ajax have a goal differential
of +3, they are 6th on the table with the same number
of points as the #11, only three points more than the #15 and
thirteen points behind league leaders PSV. Deeply embarrassing
statistics - and that's an understatement.
Ajax captain Zdenek Grygera
duels. [Photo: Ajax.nl]
Ajax's defeat in Nijmegen was even more
embarrassing than the above figures suggest, for the
simple reason that in previous games Ajax's play
was mostly acceptable (and sometimes good). Their
loss of points was, in a number of cases, down to the fact
that the strikers failed to convert the chances that
the team created so easily. NEC vs Ajax, however,
was quite possibly Ajax's poorest game under head-coach
Danny Blind. For 80 minutes Ajax failed to create a proper
scoring chance, their passing was erratic and way too
slow, the attitude of the players poor. The new
and improving Ajax of Danny Blind looked like the clueless Ajax
of Ronald Koeman: a team without
a structure or a plan.
Even in the first 20 minutes of the game, in which Ajax's
play was more or less acceptable, hosts NEC were more
determined and dangerous, although they did not
create too many real chances either: a few shots and a
dangerous header from defender Peter Wisgerhof - that was about
it in the extremely tepid, dull and uninspired first 45
minutes of the encounter at sold-out Goffert Stadium.
After the break NEC required only 50 seconds to take the
lead. Almost directly from kick-off midfielder Tininho's
thru-pass gave striker Andrzej Niedzielan a free passage
to Maarten Stekelenburg's goal. Instead of trying to score
himself the Pole offered Romano Denneboom a chance he
couldn't (and didn't) miss: 1-0 (46'). It was NEC's first
real scoring chance of the game, but Ajax
hadn't created one at all. The hosts deserved
the lead, simply because they clearly wanted it more.
Ajax's reaction was typically tepid: for yet
another half hour the team continued to play
slowly and aloofly, not at all making the impression
that they were a goal down and had to seriously
change their attitude. More and more Ajacieden drifted out of
the game, right to the point where the Amsterdam formation
seemed utterly incapable of stringing more than two accurate
passes together. Anastasiou? Three goals against
Thun, but absolutely terrible in Nijmegen.
Rosales? Utterly useless. Babel? Slow, predictable,
ineffective. Heitinga? Horrible. Even Ajax's best players
in the first months of the season (Emanuelson and Grygera) lost
the plot. Halfway the second half Ajax had reached the point
where everything, literally everything seemed to
go wrong. The only players who performed reasonably
well were goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg and defender Thomas
Vermaelen, who played instead of the injured Tomás
Galásek.
How much time left, Mr
Blind? [Photo: Ajax.nl]
The best (and only) chances in the second half were for the
home team: Denneboom could have made it 2-0 on the hour,
but shot too hastily and over the cross-bar. Edgar Barreto
had a chance but fired into the side netting. Danny Blind,
meanwhile, did the only thing he could do: he replaced Nigel de
Jong, one of Ajax's many non-performing players on the day,
with Olaf Lindenbergh for some smarter passing, and brought on
two forwards: Nourdin Boukhari and Markus Rosenberg.
If there is one positive thing we can say about this
humbling catastrophe of a game it would be that Rosenberg
had an acceptable performance as a sub. The
struggling Swede did something good with the ball when he
had it, and with a little bit of luck he could have
equalized in the 80th minute: his header was well-aimed,
but spectacularly tipped out of the low corner by Gabor
Babós. It was the first save NEC's Hungarian
goalkeeper had to make.
Ajax finally switched to a higher gear, got stuck
in and played from the heart in the latter ten minutes of
the game. It led to two big chances: in the 82nd minute
Boukhari's low cross from the left was just too hard for
Rosenberg, but gave Mauro Rosales an enormous chance at
the far post. Babos punched the Argentinian's attempt wide in
spectacular style. In the 89th minute, finally, Hedwiges Maduro
had a free header opportunity on a corner kick, but headed
inches over the cross-bar. Three chances. Three dangerous
moments, all in the dying minutes. Once again, it was too
little, too late. Substitute Guillano Grot could have made it
2-0 at the other end. NEC's win was fully deserved.
Danny Blind, after the game: "Both teams were well
organized. That wasn't our problem, really: we didn't
allow them too many chances. The thing is: we hardly
created any ourselves today. That had been different in
previous games. We only started playing from the heart
when it was 'all or nothing'. It is deeply worrying
that, apparently, we can only play that way after we
have sustained damage. It is always a reaction to something.
When we really had to battle, in the last
fifteen minutes, I finally saw determination. You should show
the same drive earlier in the game. (...) I miss that
drive in many of our players. Too many of us lack the genuine
will to win duels, for example. We only have ourselves to
blame."
That is what Danny Blind told the press, but the most
painful and direct questions were yet to come.
They came from the Ajax supporters at the Supporters'
Home, a few hours later, back home in Amsterdam. Blind admitted
that his team had not battled hard enough. Wesley Sneijder
promised that the team will make up for this collective
non-performance in the next game.
That next game is Ajax vs FC Twente on 19 November.
There is no Eredivisie football next weekend, due to the
qualification play-offs for Euro 2006 and (for five
Ajacieden) a friendly between Oranje and Italy at the
ArenA. It will be a welcome break for the players: it
will allow them to escape from the suffocating red and
white nightmare they are currently finding themselves in
and, hopefully, return with new determination and
energy. They will need it. (MP)
GOALS
Referee: Wegereef (46. Van der Roest)
Yellow cards: Heitinga (Ajax), Wielaert,
Boutahar (NEC)
Attendance: 12,500
Ajax line-up: Stekelenburg; Heitinga
(74. Rosenberg), Grygera, Vermaelen; De Jong (58. Lindenbergh),
Maduro, Sneijder, Emanuelson; Rosales, Anastasiou (67.
Boukhari), Babel.
NEC line-up: Babós; Wielaert,
Wisgerhof, Olsson, Leiwekabessy; Takak (36. Boutahar), Van der
Doelen, Barreto, Tininho; Denneboom (89. Nalbantoglu),
Niedzielan (69. Grot).
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