Entry of:19-12-99
Ajax this week:
WINTERSTOP! At last. That is what Ajax must have thought this snowy sunday afternoon, December 19th. In the far east of the country their opponent in this last game was de Graafschap. A team which surprised Roda JC 2 matches ago in their in Kerkrade and had a draw on thursday in Rotterdam. Ajax had something to fear. And it seemed like they were entering the pit with that same feeling. Especially the defence showed very little good this afternoon. Only Chivu remotely showed some good defending. It was the fault of this defense that Tumba eased his way through the Swiss Cheese defence to score in the 13th minute. The game fell asleep after that only woken one more time when Emam scored a good goal, but was canceled because of offside, which it wasn't. In the 79th minute the time was there for Machlas. After many weeks without scoring he finally did it, and a beauty it was, from at least 35 metres he shot the bullet past Olyslager.
And that finished this first half of the season of for Ajax. In very poor form it enters the holiday and hopefully some of the injured players will return after the break cause it just can't go on like this. The third place is not Ajax-worthy in a season where the opponents are also so weak.
Next game: On the second of February of the year 2000 Ajax plays its next match away against Fortuna S. and that is a team who will be motivated a lot cause their first half of the season has been underneath their goals. But if a lot of good Ajax players return from injuries, Ajax should be able to solve this one, not with high scores though.
Note for Ajax: 5
Rest of the competition:
PSV lost on saturday and that was a real treat and a good thing to keep the competition exiting. Heerenveen came by and scored out of a sneaky counter in the 83rd minute, 0-1 in Eindhoven. And Heerenveen got rewarded with a splendid 2nd place in the table at halfway the season. Feyenoord played in Utrecht against FC Utrecht and had the good side of the 3-4 score. It was a real exiting game with nice play from both sides. Willem II like Ajax stumbles with its form and set a poor 0-0 at home against Sparta. Vitesse struggled and only took a draw away from Fortuna Sittard with 3-3. FC Twente crushed Roda JC spirits with being clearly the better team but failing to express that in a higher score than a 2-1 at home. Last game was a poor game from AZ who showed that their high ranking is a coincedence, NEC was too difficult to win from at home and a draw of 1-1 was the final result in Alkmaar. The top of the table is close. Only MVV-PSV left on the program Heerenveen is now in 2nd place and Ajax follows in 3rd. Let's hope Ajax has encountered its last damage.
Note for the competition: 8
Moment of the week:
This weekend the keepers made the audiences laugh. 3 of them blundered big time. 2 of them in 1 game, Fortuna S-Vitesse. v.Zwam and Jevric both got goals against them because of hilarious situations in front of the goal. Both think that they have the same pace as v.d.Sar but they obviously don't. In Enschede Roda JC keeper Kalac also blundered when shooting the ball away in the feet of v.d.Laan. Feyenoord got too lucky this week cause a certain penalty for Utrecht was not given while Bosvelt of Feyenoord almost dislocated the shoulder of Dijkhuizen. And it was not even Luinge who refereed there. Of course best moment was the tremendous goal of Machlas which could have not come at a better time than today. It was a magnificent kick and let's hope that Machlas regains his confidence with X-mas and we can see a lot more of those goals in the second half of the season.
Willem ter Haar
(Admiring Heerenveens strength and wishing everybody happy X-mas a great 2000!!!)
AJAX-index