Ajax to face Grazer AK in Champions League qualifier
07
August: What was already a 'semi-official' certainty after
their 1-5 win at SK Tirana last week, has become official
today: Ajax's opponent in the third preliminary round of
this season's UEFA Champions League is Grazer AK, last season's
runner-up of Austria. The return leg of their second
qualifying round clash with he champions of Albania, at
home in Graz, ended in a pale 2-1 win. Ajax is to play in Graz
first on Tuesday 12 August, kick-off 20:30 local time. The
return leg in the Amsterdam ArenA is on Wednesday 27
August, kick-off 20:30.
It is the second time for Ajax to play a qualifying round
for the Champions League. The first time was in August
2000. In spite of its status as a seeded team Ajax
was paired with a tough opponent: Celtic FC from Scotland. A
dramatic 1-3 home defeat knocked Ajax out in the first leg. A
fine 0-1 win in Glasgow was not enough. This year Ajax is
morally obliged to take revenge for the 2000 elimination.
Ajax was luckier in the draw this time, if only because
opponents such as Benfica and Rosenborg BK were avoided.
Grazer AK, runner-up in Austria last season, is an opponent
not many Ajax fans know much about. Time for an
introduction...
The Opponent
The Grazer Athletik Klub, abbreviated as Grazer AK
or simply 'GAK', was founded on 18 September 1902 in the
Austrian town of Graz. The club won several regional
championships and three over-all amateur championships before
the Second World War (1929, 1932 and 1933) and made it to
several Austrian cup finals after 1945. The Austrian Cup was
won three times: 1981, 2000 and 2002. However, GAK never
won the Austrian championship yet. The club had its best league
performance last season: a second slot, behind champions
Austria Vienna. Third slots were clinched in 2002 and 2001.
Grazer AK, nicknamed Die Roten Teufel ('The Red
Devils'), had its best European campaign in the UEFA Cup of
1996-1997. After having eliminated Novi Sad (Yugoslavija) and
Germinal Ekeren (Belgium) in the first rounds GAK came close to
eliminating Italian giants Internazionale in the third round:
after a 1-0 defeat in Milan GAK won the home game by the same
score. The Italians were slightly cooler in the penalty
shoot-out: 4-5.
On 26/27 August the 'Red Devils' will welcome Ajax to their
fairly new home ground (opened in 1997), quite illustriously
named the Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium. Yes indeed: the
'Terminator' is a Graz native! GAK shares it with local rivals
Sturm Graz. The stadium holds 15,400 spectators. For the game
against Ajax on 12 August all seats will definitely be
sold.
GAK is currently coached by Walter Schachner. His roster is,
in the world of modern football, remarkably 'Austrian' and
includes Austrian internationals such as defenders Anton Ehmann
(5 caps for Austria) and Emanuel Pogatetz (4 caps), midfielders
Dieter Ramusch (10 caps), Martin Amerhauser (8 caps), Matthias
Dollinger (1 cap) and René Aufhauser (13 caps) and
striker Roland Kollmann (1 cap). Followers of the Dutch
Eredivisie may remember the latter player from his short spell
at FC Twente.
The superstars in the GAK side, however, are strikers from
elsewhere, such as Benedict Akwuegbu, who has 20 caps for
Nigeria behind his name and netted 10 goals in European
competition so far. Most remarkable newcomer to Grazer AK is
Belgian international Michael Goossens, who came from Standard
Liege this summer. He played for Genoa (Italy) and Schalke '04
(Germany) and wore the jersey of the other 'Red Devils' (the
Belgian national team) 14 times.
Grazer AK made it to the third preliminary round of the
Champions League by eliminating Albanian champions SK Tirana in
the second. It was a done deal after the away leg in Albania,
which GAK won by 1-5. Central forward Ilco Naumoski netted
twice, while René Aufhauser, Joachim Standfest and one
of the team's stars in midfield, Mario Bazina from Croatia,
added one each. The goals in the 06 August return leg were
scored by Gernot Sick and Roland Kollmann, making for a 7-2 win
on aggregate. It his remarkable that GAK's seven goals against
SK Tirana were produced by six different scorers.
The T-Mobile Bundesliga, as Austria's highest football
league is named, is already a few games underway, which may be
an advantage to the Austrians. As of 06 August GAK sits in the
second slot on the table, having grabbed the full nine points
from its first three games. League leaders Rapid Vienna have a
slightly better goal-difference.
Additional English language information on Grazer AK is hard
to find on the internet. One of the very few fansites that
provides information on club and stadium in English is G.A.K. International (click
the 'club' and 'ground' buttons at top of page). The
official Grazer AK website does not have an English section.
For those who read German - or want to enjoy the pictures: it
lives at www.gak.at
Ajax and Grazer AK: Shared History
Ajax and Grazer AK never played each other in European
competition or in a friendly. The only links between the
two clubs are three players who played for both Ajax and
GAK. Coincidentally the only two Austrians ever to have
played for Ajax played for GAK also: Heinz Schilcher and Felix
Gasselich. Schilcher played for Grazer AK from 1965 to
1969 and joined the Ajax of Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Ruud
Krol, Arie Haan, Sjaak Swart and Piet Keizer in the summer
of 1971. In the two years he played in Amsterdam, Ajax won its
second and third consecutive European Champions
Cups. Schilcher, however, remained on the bench in both
finals. Today Schilcher is the head-coach of
GAK's local rivals, Sturm Graz.
Felix Gasselich joined Ajax in the summer of 1983 and played
for Ajax until December of 1985. In Amsterdam he was a
team-mate of Ronald Koeman and talented youngsters such as
Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard. He lost his spot in the
team when Johan Cruyff took over as a head-coach and left
halfway the 1985-1986 season. "He and I just didn't understand
one another. I wasn't his type. He built on other players",
Gasselich said in an interview with the Tiroler
Tageszeitung this week. The Austrian moved on to LASK from
Linz and ended up wearing the red strip of GAK in
1988-1989.
While Gasselich - a born Austrian - played for
Ajax, a born and raised Amsterdammer and Ajax legend was
playing for GAK: Barry Hulshoff, who played 283 games for Ajax
and had Heinz Schilcher as a team-mate in the 1970s, spent the
last years of his player career at GAK. He also spent the first
year of his 'second' football career att the Red Devils of
Graz: after having called it quits as a GAK player he
continued to work for GAK as a technical director.
Hulshoff is currently technical director of Willem II.
Hulshoff: "The level of play in Austria was higher than it is
now. Austria and Rapid Vienna, as well as FC Tirol were pretty
good team. But it was better in Holland and Belgium. Ajax
really should be able to advance."
In their interview with the Tiroler
Tageszeitung Schilcher and Gasselich are not as
certain. Austria's former Ajacieden think that GAK
most definitely has a chance against Ajax, for the simple
reason that the Austrian league is already a full month
underway, whereas the game in Graz is the first 'real'
game for Ajax. Schilcher: "If GAK succeeds in taking
advantage of that and not allowing Ajax to play its own game,
there surely are chances."
Ajax against Austrian opposition
Ajax may never have played GAK, the Amsterdammers played
several other, sometimes legendary games against Austrian
opposition. The Amsterdammers were paired with an Austrian side
four times in UEFA competition.The first ever time was in the
fall of 1961 in the quarter final of the Intertoto Cup. Each
Intertoto round consisted of only one leg at the time. Ajax
played at home against First Vienna in Amsterdam's Olympic
Stadium (27 September 1961) and won with much difficulty: 4-3
after extra time. Ajax advanced to win its first ever, but now
mostly forgotten international trophy (winning the final
against... Feyenoord!).
The most bitter memories of a tie with an Austrian side are
from September 1989. It was the first time for Ajax to play an
Austrian team in one of the three 'main' UEFA competitions, but
the confrontation with Austria Memphis Vienna in the first
round of the UEFA Cup almost had Ajax's bankruptcy as a result.
After a 1-0 away defeat and a fatal Austrian equalizer (1-1) in
De Meer the second leg (27 September 1989) could be added to
the Ajax annals as the game of the 'bar incident': an iron bar,
torn loose from the fences, was thrown from the F-Side and hit
goalkeeper Wohlfarth full-on. Ajax was handed an administrative
home defeat 0-3 and was banned from UEFA competition for one
season. It nearly was the financial death-blow for the
struggling club.
The next Austrian opponent to come out of the bowl was SV
Casino Salzburg in September of 1992 in the first round of the
UEFA Cup. For the first and only time in an official European
game an Austrian opponent was a piece of cake for Ajax: 0-3 in
Salzburg on 16 September (goals: Edgar Davids, Marc Overmars
and Michel Kreek), 3-1 in Amsterdam on 30 September (two Stefan
Pettersson and one Dennis Bergkamp strike).
Coach Louis van Gaal continued to develop his young Ajax
lot, which reached full maturity in 1994-1995. That season the
Amsterdammers clashed with Casino Salzburg again in the first
round of the Champions League that would eventually be won (in
the final in Vienna, Austria, by the way...). Although they
played an even better Ajax team than in 1992 the
ultra-defensive Austrians were the only European opponent that
season not to allow Ajax a win: after a pale 0-0 in Salzburg
(19 October) a last-gasp Jari Litmanen equalizer (1-1) was
required to hold on to a point in Amsterdam (2 November). It
was Ajax's 7th and last official UEFA game against a club from
Austria until today.
There are, however, more interesting 'Austrian Ajax facts'
that deserve a mention. It is interesting to know, for example,
that Ajax's first ever trip abroad was a journey to Austria, or
- to be precise - to the mighty Austrian-Hungarian monarchy of
the early 20th century. The historic journey commenced on 23
May 1912. None of the players had ever set foot across the
Dutch border as the team took a train to Budapest. Ajax played
its very first game on foreign soil on 2 June and got
demolished by MTK Budapest: 5-1. The next day, 3 June 1912, was
the date of Ajax's very first match in Austria as we know
it today. In Vienna Wiener SC proved too strong: 2-0.
Ajax played numerous friendlies against Austrian opponents,
particularly before World War Two, but never against Grazer AK,
any other Graz side or even in the town of Graz. The most
memorable of all those friendly fixtures is - no doubt - the
one on 21 June 1930. Ajax was convinced of its own
qualities and figured it was time to take on one of
Europe's best of those days: Rapid Vienna. Ninety minutes later
Ajax's feet were back on the ground: 16-2 to the Austrians, a
result that still stands as the largest defeat Ajax ever
suffered.
Austrian teams were not always easy for Ajax, but on the
other hand: Dutch opposition in UEFA competition has so far
always been fatal for GAK. The Red Devils were paired with a
Dutch opponent twice before: in the Cup Winners Cup of
1968 ADO Den Haag brushed GAK aside with a 6-1 aggregate (4-1
and 0-2). More recently, in 2001, FC Utrecht proved too
strong in the UEFA Cup. After a 3-0 knock-out blow in Utrecht,
GAK came close to a stunt by taking a 3-0 lead in Graz.
However, FC Utrecht managed to level the score, 3-3,
making for a 6-3 aggregate. (MP)
Related links
