John van ‘t Schip© ANP
Amsterdam
In a week of administrative chaos, Ajax had to swallow a new disappointment. The club seemed to be on its way to a home win over Go Ahead Eagles, until Diant Ramaj made a horrendous mistake in injury time. The keeper misjudged a high ball, after which Bas Kuipers could easily shoot the ball into the goal (1-1).
Three days before the away match against Feyenoord, Ajax is still in fifth place, with 2 points more than NEC. That position is important if Feyenoord wins the KNVB Cup. In that case, number 5 in the final rankings will avoid the play-offs for European football. Feyenoord will play the cup final against NEC in De Kuip on April 21.
General manager Alex Kroes, who was suspended by Ajax on Tuesday, also came to the ArenA. The supervisory board wants to dismiss him because he traded in shares with insider information. The fanatical Ajax fans did not sing to him. They do want Annette Mosman, Cees van Oevelen and Georgette Schlick to leave the supervisory board. They were also supervisors when the now dismissed director of football affairs Sven Mislintat spent more than 100 million euros on new players.
Criticism
Anton Gaaei received a lot of criticism this season. The Danish right back was substituted after serious mistakes in the first half of the matches with Feyenoord and AZ. He deleted all his posts on Instagram after hateful messages from angry Ajax supporters. But against Go Ahead Eagles, Gaaei attracted attention in a different way. He scored beautifully in the 24th minute, after a cross from the diligent Mika Godts.
Ajax was stronger than Go Ahead Eagles, with Steven Bergwijn instead of the injured Brian Brobbey and Chuba Akpom as striker. The home team ran into problems before half time when Oliver Edvardsen broke through. The Norwegian could not get the ball past Ramaj. Ajax failed to advance further in the first half. Bergwijn shot narrowly wide and Godts kicked the ball against the post after a quick dribble.
Trainer John van ‘t Schip is careful with Godts. The 18-year-old Belgian has only just recovered from a muscle injury. He made way for Kian Fitz-Jim after an hour. The match remained exciting until the last minute because Ajax failed to express its field dominance in another goal. That enabled Go Ahead Eagles to take advantage of a blunder by Ramaj in injury time.
‘This fits our season’
Van ‘t Schip was disappointed with the draw. “This fits in with our season,” he said, referring to Ramaj’s blunder in injury time. The goalkeeper was unable to get a hold of a high ball and thus gave Bas Kuipers the opportunity to equalize (1-1).
“Diant has saved us many times this season,” said Van ‘t Schip. “But now I think he is misjudging the situation. He must punch the ball or stay in his goal. That’s a shame. Because with a win we could have taken fifth place more firmly in our hands.”
Van ‘t Schip was satisfied with Ajax’s first half. “Anton Gaaei scored a beautiful goal,” he said. “I really thought that was nice for that boy. He came over from a mid-ranking club from Denmark and has to play in front of 50,000 people here. He had participated like this in Ajax a few years ago. But now it has been more difficult. It is not fun to be substituted in the first half of matches against Feyenoord and AZ. But he didn’t give up.”
Ajax missed important players such as Brian Brobbey, Jordan Henderson and Steven Berghuis. Chuba Akpom, normally Brobbey’s first replacement, was missing due to an ankle injury. “We should have taken more distance in the first half,” said Van ‘t Schip. “Bergwijn has been out for a long time. He couldn’t play a whole match either. And Godts has not played for a long time and is also participating in Ramadan. He had to get out too. That didn’t make us play any better.”