KNVB Cup: ADO Den Haag to visit Ajax in third round
22 September: Ajax face ADO Den Haag in the third round of
the KNVB Cup (the Dutch cup competition previously known as
Gatorade Cup and Amstel Cup). This was the outcome of the
draw, immediately after the last matches in the second
round on Thursday evening. Ajax's rivals from The
Hague will come to the Amsterdam ArenA. The match has been
scheduled for Thursday 09 November, kick-off time 20:15
CET.
Remarkably, ADO Den Haag's second round cup fixture was also
played at the Amsterdam ArenA. The Eredivisie side faced
Türkiyemspor, Amsterdam's 'Turkish' club, playing in
the Hoofdklasse of Dutch amateur football. Den Haag
won easily: 1-6, thanks to no less than four Eljero Elia
goals. The setting was bizarre: the match it was played in
front of only 300 spectators at the massive ArenA, all of
them supporters of Türkiyemspor. The choice for the
ArenA was safety measure: Türkiyemspor's accomodation
was deemed unsafe for a match against a 'high risk' club such
as ADO Den Haag. Authorities feared trouble between Den Haag
and Ajax supporters at the amateur ground. Eventually, no
Den Haag were allowed into the ArenA at all, allegedly because
the The Hague club failed to submit their reservation of a
supporters' train in time.
It is as yet unknown whether the Den Haag support will
be welcome at the ArenA for the cup fixture in November. In the
aftermath of the
attack on the ADO Den Haag clubhouse by Ajax
hooligans, on 11 February of this year, authorities, clubs and
the KNVB decided that
away fans are not welcome at Eredivisie
matches between ADO Den Haag and Ajax for at
least three seasons. Will an exception be made for cup
games...? It is yet to be decided.
Ajax and ADO Den Haag share a long 'cup history'. The
Amsterdammers played a total of seven cup games against the
club from The Residence in all its incarnations (ADO,
FC Den Haag and ADO Den Haag). The latter five encounters
ended in triumphs for Ajax, but back in the day,
when ADO Den Haag was still simply ADO, it wasn't as
easy. Ajax faced ADO in the semi-final on 23 April 1964
and in the final on 03 June 1968. Both
times, ADO proved stronger: 1-0 and 2-1,
respectively.
In the five cup encounters that followed,
however, Ajax always left the pitch as the
winners. Four times the opponents were called FC Den Haag,
namely in the final in Rotterdam on 11 May 1972 (3-2), in
the third round at De Meer on 09 January 1983 (3-2), in the
final in The Hague on 05 June
1987 (4-2 after extra time) and in the third round at
De Meer on 05 January 1992 (3-1).
The only cup game between the two clubs after Den Haag's
most recent name change (from FC Den Haag to ADO Den Haag) was
only a year and a half ago, on
02 March 2005 at a snow-covered Zuiderpark Stadium.
Ajax advanced on goals by Wesley Sneijder and Mauro Rosales:
0-2. (MP)
UPDATE 25 September: It has now been decided that
ADO Den Haag will come to Amsterdam without travelling fans.
The agreement between the KNVB, ADO Den Haag and Ajax to leave
their fans at home for at least three seasons also applies to
games in the KNVB Cup.
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