Bummer

Ryan Babel picked up an a rather serious ankle injury in today's Oranje training session and has been ruled out for the entire Euro 08 campaign. As much as this must suck for Ryan, it looks like he may have not been destined for a lot of playing time even if he was healthy. Marco van Basten quickly named defender Khalid Boulahrouz as his replacement, which leads me to believe that a) he thinks he has a plethora of talent already up front and he doesn't consider Babel a significant loss and b) he obviously does not have confidence in that back line. Its just bad timing for the kid regardless. I really think he could have made a difference with his pace and the power he can put behind the ball.

http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=718434

Not much to report these days, apart from Chelsea apparently firing Henk ten Cate...

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=540754&cc=5901

In other news, Ajax.nl recently posted a rather boring list of pre-season friendlies. Hopefully some more interesting Amsterdam Tournament opponents will be named soon?

Saturday 19 July: Noordwijk - Ajax (Noordwijk, 3 p.m.)

Tuesday 22 July: Germanicus - Ajax (Coevorden, 7.30 p.m.)

Thursday 24 July: Excelsior ’31 - Ajax (Rijssen, 7.30 p.m.)

Saturday 26 July: Team Jaap Stam - Ajax (Zwolle, 8.30 p.m.)

Sunday 3 August: Sunderland - Ajax (Sunderland, 3.30 p.m. local time)

Sunday 17 August: Real Murcia - Ajax (Murcia, time to be confirmed)

If you care to watch today's Oranje match vs Denmark...I hear Steks may be in goal?

http://www3.myp2p.eu/broadcast.php?matchid=12879&part=sports

20 years later?

With the Eredivisie season mercifully coming to an end last week, its time to turn our attention to what could be a very exciting summer for the men in Oranje. Am I looking at this schedule correctly? Is the Italy match really only 2 weeks away? Guess I'd better start looking for my oranje pigtails.

So its been 20 years since Holland won their only European Cup in those sweet wallpaper-esque shirts. Van Basten was the top scorer with 5 goals (including 3 against England in the group stages), a 2-1 win over hosts West Germany eased a bit of the pain felt after the '74 WC final, and a convincing 2-0 win over the Soviets (yes, that's how long ago it was), finally gave the Netherlands the respect they deserved. Since then, things have been...well, not so great. Despite being regarded as one of the greatest footballing nations in the world, the Dutch have also managed to be labeled one of the biggest disappointments as well.

Ok, enough of the history lesson.

In a sign of the times, with Heitinga gone and Hunetlaar pretty much out the door, Steks could end up being the only true Ajacied on Van Basten's final roster. And he's on the bench! Ouch. The team does look good though, and its nice to see some old familiar names like Melchiot and Van Bronkhorst still in the mix with the younger generation of players that dominates the roster these days. Whatever the final line up looks like, they are going to have a tough time getting out of Group C. Italy of course is always a scary team to play, but the team that worries me the most is the Romanians, a team that Holland could only muster a 0-1-1 record against in qualifying. I wouldn't be surprised to see France at the bottom of this group. If Oranje manages to get by the group stages, they would be pared with either the winner or runner up of Group D, which includes Sweden, Spain, Greece and Russia, all of which are beatable teams.

One thing is for sure, the last thing I want to see is for Holland to end up last in that group with Van Basten headed to 'rescue' Ajax.

Jolly Green Giant!!

I really could have cared less who won that game yesterday, but it was really cool to the former Ajacied and current Oranje keeper come through in the clutch like that. When you look back at the 37 year old's PK track record (loosing in 95-96 with Ajax in the CL final and twice with the national side), its especially nice to see him do well in that situation. Today he is being called a hero, and honestly I can't really disagree. None of the other United players really deserve that title after the putrid second half and extra- time performance they put in and Var der Sar made a couple of brilliant saves during the match to limit Chelsea to one goal. And your heart just has to go out to poor John Terry, that is just the peak of suckdom.

Is it pathetic that I got a little giddy when the ESPN announcers mentioned Ajax when they were talking about Seedorf and Van der Sar? Its is isn't it....I have problems...

Shocker

News flash...Edgar David's second tour of duty with Ajax has come to an end. The 35 year old midfielder has left the team as expected in a mutual agreement with the club. Davids denies any link between him leaving and the arrival of Marco van Basten as head coach, but there seems to be a lack of any other substantial justification for the move. Why would this self proclaimed "Ajax Man" want to end his career anywhere else? Seems a bit sad to me, much like Clarence Seedorf's decision not to join the Oranje squad for the European Championships this year and the decades long feud between the members of Pink Floyd that still haunts me to this day. Why can't grown men just get along?

Oh, and in the "who cares" department, Ajax has decided not to extend the contract of seldom seen Ghanian defender Sammy Kufour.

The aftermath...failure or blessing?

The play-offs are finally over, Ajax fizzled out with a lackluster performance yesterday and have been relegated to the UEFA cup despite holding 2nd place in the Eredivsie this year. We all saw it or have read about it at this point, and the game wasn't really much to write about, so I'll keep my comments about the game to a minimum. There were numerous hard fouls by Twente, subsequent missed opportunities on free kicks by Ajax, questionable substitutions by Koster, and in the end a very disappointing but rather predictable end to a very long season. FC Twente is a good team, lets hope they can keep their momentum going through the Champions League and make an impact for the Eredivisie's sake.

This brings up the question of how bad this loss really is for Ajax. Sure, the CL means a ton of money coming your way and the possibility of playing some of Europe's best clubs, but looking at the status of Ajax right now and thinking about how this team is going to look in the fall, is another early exit from the CL really worth it? Is the UEFA cup a better situation for a team with an ego that you can only describe as "fragile" at this point and that will most likely only be worse off in a few months? But then again, as a fan of a proud team with a tradition like Ajax, shouldn't we always want them to strive to win at the highest level of competition? Is thinking about this situation in practical terms like this a way of just giving up and a sign that we have just lost hope? Personally, I would have rather seen an Ajax victory yesterday so I wouldn't even be having these toughts at all. I want them in the CL, and I want them to be able to do what they did back in '02-'03 with a team that really wasn't any better than today's team. I want Eredivisie championships to be the norm, not a just a possibility. My worst fear is that this team is going to go through the same turmoil that Feyenoord has gone through over the past few years. Hopefully van Basten can turn the tide, and a decent showing in the UEFA cup will bring back the confidence that this team needs to get things rolling again.

Fuck de Play-offs

Too bad, so sad.

I feel like I've been saying this after every season, but a chink in PSV's armour may have just appeared. One of the best keepers the Eredivisie has seen in a long time seems to have pretty much cut all ties with the Eindhoven side. Rarely does a keeper play such a large part in a team's success as Gomes has done, especially this year in the Champions League and UEFA Cup. The tall, lanky keeper seems like he's made of rubber sometimes, and as goofy as he may look he's pure dynamite in the net. I think its safe to say that the other 17 teams in the Eredivisie are not too upset about this development. If you can't get excited about the players that Ajax is signing, you can at least get excited about PSV loosing players right?

New Section: Oranje News

Just FYI, I've added a new news feed to this page (bottom right) to keep it up to date with the latest news on the Dutch national team. And I'm going to try to improve these feeds to keep them from pulling irrelevant or old news stories (if i see PSV win the Dutch title again I'm going to puke).

It comes down to this...

One more game left...a 2-1 deficit to make up at home...and a week to think about it. Champions League or UEFA Cup, whats it going to be boys? I didn't get a chance to watch the game, but the highlights made it look like a relatively even match other than the extremely harsh penalty decision on Vertonghen, and the 8 yellow cards dished out by Haverkort tells me it was a hard fought match. Luckily none of the 4 cards given to the Amsterdammers will keep anyone out of the game on Sunday. It was definitely good to see Steks, Suarez and Davids all back in the starting lineup, especially Suarez, who scored the lone Ajax goal after speculation last week that he may not be fit to play.

Twente seems to have our number this year, something that must be in the minds of the Ajax camp as they prepare for Sunday's game. How do they reverse the trend? An obvious key would be to get KJH to start playing better in what could be his last game as an Ajacied. I see a goal for him on Sunday playing a crucial role in an Ajax victory, but I think the winner is going to come from someone totally random....say a corner headed in by Silva (love that guy), or a loose ball in the box put in by Gabri. A 1-0 win would do it, but I sure don't want to be sweating out the last 10 minutes on Sunday with only that advantage. That begs the question of how aggressive will Ajax be? Will they just go for that one goal and then sit back? Hope not. Ah, the nerves are setting in already.

Why Ajax?

Being an Ajax fan in the U.S. is unique experience. Not only are we fans of a sport that ridiculed and unaccepted by most of the general population here, but on top of that, we love a team from Holland of all places ?!? Sure, Ajax is the biggest and most historically popular team in Holland, but I live in Washington DC, a large and culturally diverse city, and I can count the number of Ajax jerseys that I've seen in the four years that I've lived here on one hand! As a matter of fact, I'll be sporting my 07/08 away jersey at the DC United game tonight, and I'll bet I'm the only person at RFK wearing Ajax colors (look for me on ESPN, 7:30 EST, maybe I'll promote this site by streaking with the website written on my bum).

So whats our deal? Why the hell do we love this team? Does the uniqueness of being an Ajax fan just add to our passion for the team? Is it the history that we love? The style of play? Is it Wamberto? Whatever it is, if you read all the English Ajax sites, blogs and message boards out there, you know that there is a small group of hardcore Ajacied living in the U.S. and other places that could hang with the best F-Side supporters out there.

My own personal story is simple, I visited Amsterdam about 7 years ago and basically fell in love with Holland and everything Dutch. I remember when I returned, I happened to randomly tune in to Fox Sports World and recognized the red and white of Ajax immediately. As tough as it was to sit through a game narrated by Christian Miles, I was hooked immediately and watched every game that year. Since then I've attended a few games at the ArenA, and Ajax has become my favorite team in any sport, more or less replacing the typical American sports that I used to follow. Ik ben Ajacied!

If anyone is actually reading this blog, I've love to hear your thoughts/stories of being an Ajax fan in the U.S. (or anywhere outside of Holland)!

Huntelaar to stay?

Reports are flying around this morning about KJH's comments in an interview that he did with Ajax Life magazine this week. The Eredivisie leading scorer had some interesting things to say about the possibility of working with new Ajax coaches Marco van Basten and Dennis Bergkamp... "As a striker, I’d like to work with the crème de la crème, two former stars from whom I could learn a lot. It is a possibility and that prospect could certainly influence my decision". Also adding to the growing fervor are comments made by Ajax managing director Henri van der Aat, who stated that negotiations with the striker are "proceeding in harmony" and that Ajax was prepared to offer KJH the chance to leave them for a reasonable fee in the summer of 2009 if he stayed another year at the ArenA. Now...any Ajax fan with a memory span of more than 10 months will remember seeing this type of situation before with Wesley Sneijder and its probably nothing more than a negotiation gimmick to get more money out of one of the big clubs, but hey, it would be awesome if he stayed.

Hoogtepunten Ajax - sc Heerenveen

Ajax cruised into the Champions League final with a seemingly effortless win over Heerenveen yesterday. A red-hot FC Twente team awaits in Saturday's first leg of the finals. Twente have shown that they they can play with (and beat) anyone in the Eredivise this year, and an 8-1 aggregate victory over a good NAC team in the first round scares the crap out of me. I did not see either of the games in this matchup, so I'm not sure if it was a case of Twente playing well or NAC just playing like crap? 8-1 is an impressive result either way.

The Ajax victory yesterday wasn't without incident, with both Suarez and Stekelenburg having to be subbed out due to injuries, with Suarez' appearing to be rather severe. If Suarez is not available on Saturday, Ajax can be thankful that they got such a good game out of 19 year old Jeffery Sarpong yesterday. Sarpong looked a bit shaky in the first 44 minutes, but his penalty kick win before the half, his assist on Dennis Rommedahl's goal and a well played 2nd half should give the team a boost if Suarez isn't available. Would Koster put Rommedahl in the starting 11 if this is the case?

Adrie Koster...a job well done?

Before he was appointed interim manager back in October of last year, Adrie Koster was best known for managing RKC when they were relegated last season. Obviously that's not exactly the way you want to be remembered. After Henk ten Cate's departure, few people knew what to expect from him and an Ajax team that had just stunk up the Champions League and made an even worse impression when dumped into the UEFA cup. These were by far the darkest days I can remember in my 7 or so years of being an Ajax fan. As welcome as Henk ten Cate's departure may have been, Koster's appointment didn't exactly inspire thoughts of winning the Eredivise this year or even qualifying for a spot in next year's Champions League. Ajax escaped with a lucky draw in Nijmegen in Koster's first game, and it looked like the misery was going to continue with Koster at the helm. Eight days later, a loss at Utrecht could have turned Ajax's downward spiral into a free fall, but a 68th minute goal from Huntelaar held up and the new coach had his first win with Ajax. Over the next few months of the season, there were a few questionable losses/draws (1-2 at a Excelsior and 2-2 at Venlo come to mind), but for the most part, Ajax seemed to be playing well, or at least better than they were under ten Cate. A crushing 3-0 win at home over Feyenoord highlighted a season that, for all its ups and downs, could end up with a spot in the Champions League next year after all. In my opinion, not a bad job by Mr. Koster, and I'm glad to see that he is going back to coach at de Toekomst next year.

De Superfriezen...

I mean seriously, I LIKE Heerenveen. I think they are a fun team to watch, they always have great young players, and damn it if they dont have one of the coolest jerseys I've ever seen. So I can't help but feel a little bad for them about most likely loosing to Ajax in the play-offs for a third year in a row. Sure, its a bit premature to be talking like this, especially since Ajax only has a one goal advantage at this point. But you'd be hard pressed to find someone that really thinks that Ajax is going to blow this one at home given the way things have gone the past two years, Sulejmani's continued absence, and a lack of many other scoring options for Heerenveen at the ArenA tomorrow.