Ajax confirms October friendly at Djurgårdens IF
18 September: Ajax finally confirmed on its official
website today that a friendly fixture has been added to
the agenda: on Tuesday 14 October Ajax will play reigning
Swedish champions and current league leaders in Sweden's
Allsvenskan, Djurgårdens IF. The game will be
played in Stockholm's historic Olympic Stadium of 1912.
Kick-off time is 20:00.
Ajax's confirmation comes late, as the fixture was already
confirmed in the Swedish media several weeks ago and
subsequently announced by Swedish regulars to the Ajax
discussion zone of
SoccerPages.com, the discussion forum with which Ajax
USA has a partnership.
The Djurgårdens IF roster
features two players whose names may sound
familiar to Ajax fans: the first one is offensive midfielder
and Swedish international Kim Källström, who was
repeatedly linked with Ajax in transfer rumours earlier this
year. The second is Dutch striker Geert den Ouden, who
previously played for RBC Roosendaal and had an excellent
start for DIF in the Allsvenskan.
Why would Ajax add a midweek friendly fixture to the agenda
in the middle of the Champions League group stage?
The question seems easy to answer: for commercial reasons.
The game is organized by Ajax's jersey sponsor, ABN AMRO bank,
and its Swedish partner, Alfred Berg Holding, due to the
official presentation of a new ABN AMRO brand-name and
logo for Sweden. The proceedings of the game
will be partially donated to the World Childhood
Foundation.
It's been a while since Ajax played a game in Sweden. The
last time Ajax played on Swedish soil is almost
exactly twelve years ago today: on 1 October at
Örebro SK. It was the second leg of Ajax's
confrontation with the Swedes in the first round of the UEFA
Cup. Ajax won: 0-1 on an Aron Winter goal. The home game
(played in Düsseldorf, Germany due to a UEFA ban) had
ended in a 3-0 win for Ajax on 18 September, exactly
twelve years ago today.
Ajax (of 1900) and 'DIF' (of 1891) go way
back. The last time the two historic clubs played each
other was in Sweden on 26 August 1947. The Swedes
scored the only goal of the game (1-0). However, the team
Ajax played against was in fact a combined team,
consisting of the best players of AIK Solna and
Djurgårdens IF.
This makes the first game between the two, played on 19
June 1919 in Stockholm, the only
real confrontation. Ajax had just won its second
ever Dutch championship, was coached by the legendary Jack
Reynolds and featured famous Dutch players from the
post-World War One years, such as Henk Hordijk, brothers Fons
and Joop Pelser and fan-favourite Jan de Natris, known as the
first (but not the last) enfant terrible in
Ajax history. Ajax won by 0-2.
The 14 October fixture will be the first time
for Zlatan Ibrahimovic to play on Swedish soil wearing an
Ajax jersey. It's a safe bet that there will be
plenty of media attention for the Ajax striker. It's
also a safe bet that his immensely popular predecessor,
'Mr Ajax #2' Stefan Pettersson, will be present in Stockholm to
watch the Dutch club he still loves. (MP)
Source: Ajax.nl
Related links:
