Ajax ultimately achieved a seemingly carefree victory against Qarabag FK, partly because the home club received two red cards. However, the Azerbaijani press was not particularly impressed by the Amsterdammers.
The newspaper columnist Musawat saw how Ajax’s experience was decisive. ‘Ajax is no longer the club of stars, it was even believed that Qarabag could win. The head coach is an unknown young Italian, and his team was unrecognizable. Yes, they represent the Netherlands and have a lot of experience, but it seemed that they were living on their experience in this match.’
AzeriSport is hard for Júlio Romão, who very quickly saddled his team with one man less. ‘His umpteenth stupid mistake turned out to be costly, it was completely unnecessary to lose the ball there. After that Qarabag was ready. Unfortunately, Ajax did not have its own Romão who would also commit such a stupidity. The visitors dealt cleverly with their surplus situation,” writes the sports website. But Francesco Farioli’s formation was only moderately appealing.
‘Ajax was surprisingly bad across the board. We did not expect this from one of Europe’s most successful clubs. They looked weak, until Qarabag almost gave up after the penalty. They had nothing left. And we need to talk about the arbitration. After just nineteen seconds, Wout Weghorst committed a foul on Marko Jankovic, and we are sure it would have been a red card.’
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