I am unaccustomed to see Zlatan wear zebra jersey, strange. This guy knows all there is to know about our tactical details.Yesterday Larsson faced his old club without a hesitate to score('82). Capello certainly will not waste Zlatan's power.If he come on as a substitute, possibly he will get in('85).
but in other words, we know him well too. Galasek's injury is a big loss i think, and i 'm surely worry about our defender.!!!!!!!
I want something upset and surprised result, fed up with the unromantic game. I hope he will score, but in his "own" net.
Don't know what will happen, wait and see.

Right. I'm off to Rembrandtplein for a few pre-game sherbets with my mates (AFCA Madnezz, Baggy, Mark) and the notorious Cockney Cloggies, including Pizza 5, Adfin, Mark, Dave, Ray and Andy. I all wound up, I must say. Can't wait. And I always get more optimistic as kick-off time comes closer...

ENJOY THE GAME, FOLKS!!

Send out your positive energy to the lads. They will need it!

C'MON AJAX! C'MON AJAX!

The lineups are in at uefa.com, surprisingly Zlatan is in the game from the beginning.

21 Stekelenburg
3 Heitinga
5 Maxwell
8 Pienaar
10 Van der Vaart
12 Obodai
16 De Jong
18 Sneijder
19 Sonck
23 Grygera
29 Mitea

Is this a 4-4-2 with van der vaart or Mitea on top with Sonck? My bet is Raffy on top. Will be hard for him to mark Zlatan....

1 Buffon
8 Emerson
9 Ibrahimovic
10 Del Piero
11 Nedved
15 Birindelli
16 Camoranesi
19 Zambrotta
20 Blasi
21 Thuram
28 Cannavaro

On the UEFA website, it looks more like a 4-3-3 formation with 4 defenders, 3 midfielders and 3 forwards (Sonck the lone Striker). I don't know how this is going to work. I don't think I have ever seen Ajax set up like that. We usually play with 4 defenders, 4 midfielders and 2 strikers up front (4-4-2). If we had exceptional defenders, I would like Ajax to play a 3-3-4 one day with 3 defenders, 3 midfielders and 2 wingers and 2 Strikers myself.

looks like our first loss. =(

Well, the loss is a fact

We never really got the game going except for some good period in the second half. It could have been 0-0 if that effin Nedved wouldn't bee so good once standing up on the pitch for a change.

I'm really disappointed, Juve didn't look that good at all and we could easily have had a draw and some vital points with us.

Random views:

Tonight we saw two of the world's absolutely best left backs.

Heitinga was solid as a rock and stuck like glue on Zlatan.

My prior praise of 4-4-2 is now down the drain, let's just stick to 4-3-3 from now on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by __earth
looks like our first loss. =(

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I have just finished watching the game and thought we were the better team in the 2nd half. Mitea had a good game and supplied several good crosses but we did not have a striker in the box. We created chances in the 2nd half and overall I think we should have had a draw.

Sonck hit the crossbar at the very start but after that he did not look like getting the better of the Juve defence. Zlatan did not look much better either.

I will leave the rest to Menno the expert but our defence certainly were on the ball tonight except for one moment of magic from Nedved.

After watching them tonight I could not help wondering how they let in 3 last Sunday.

I have only just got Sky installed this week so I was able to watch the game live and it was great . We do get about 17 games recorded on Channel 5 but it is not the same as watching live.

I have every confidence we will finish above Bayern in 2nd place and look forward to seeing more of my team live on TV.

although we lost this game it was probably the best ajax game this season.we played very well in second half.to bad sonck didn't scored in second minute.it would be an excellent goal and very important for his selfconfidence.mitea and maxwell were excellent on the left side.sneijder and VDV played bad.our defenders played very good especially heitinga.if we play like this against bayern i'm sure that we can beat them.i'm now far more optimistic then i was before the game although we lost.if we beat maccabi twice we will be second in this group.

go ajax!!!

__________________
here is something for psv and feyenoord-

Who has some more info on Rosales?

FSW reported he missed the match due to a failing a pre game physical... What's his status?

From the limited action I saw, it appears the Italians did what we've come to expect... just enough to win.

I thought we just had bad luck. I thought that we had more decent scoring chances and I was just waiting for the equalizer. Unfortunately, it did not come.

I thought that Nedved should have gotten sent off with a second yellow after his nasty challange right after he scored. It might have been a different game with Juve reduced to 10 men.

Overall, I felt that the game deserved to be a draw. I thought that Mitea played pretty well but it would have been interesting to see Rosales out there. Hope he gets his fitness back soon. Even though we did not win I think that the new tactics seemed to have some promise worthy of further experimentation.

By the way, this must have been Grygera's best game for Ajax this far. He hardly did any mistakes and took care of Zlatan excellently.

Like SPL I watched the game on Sky and I thought that in the first half Juve were brilliant in that they didn't let Ajax have any time on the ball and when they had the ball they always looked dangerous. However,in the second half it was a different story with the Ajax midfield making itself more room and time. Sneijder really came into his own and was starting to really open up the Juve defence with pin-point balls out to Mitea etc. Raffie was pushed further up field to support Sonk and we were looking really dangerous.
But then we took Sneijder off, Juve brought on a couple of subs and they then just strangled the game.
Why did Koeman take Sneijder off when he/we were playing so well and it looked only a matter of time until we equalised?

In the first half, I thought Ajax were playing defensively on instructions from the coach. A really crappy first half. Not that Juventus created something special neither. But they were 1-0 up. In the second half, Ajax had to react. I told my cousin seated next to me on my sofa (who is a great Ajax supporter as well) that, now we will determine what Ajax we expect to see in CL this season. If they don't react, then there is no chance for us to qualify.

But the reaction came. Even greater than I expected. A total domination for the first 25 mins. Enough was created for us to draw and beat Juve. But, and here comes the problem, we lost precious chances. Sonck, VD Vaart, Mitea, Pienaar, Sneijder lost goal scoring opportunities (only these make up 5 goal chances). I also think that the pitch didn't help us since VDVaart as well as Sonck tripped unexplainably when clear on goal.

Anyway, except for the result, it was quite a positive day for who was expecting good play from Ajax. I think that if we continue in this way, together with Rosales, we can qualify.

I want to make another point. In my opinion, the defense was super. After the blunders in the league they played very well and kept Juve at bay for the whole of the match except for a couple of occasions. Grygera played one of his best matches for Ajax, and Heitinga was superb.

Although I'm not a huge fan of Mitea, he was one of the best on the pitch. But unfortunately his great defect, that of lack of vision and intelligent play, was once again present against Juve. He just takes the ball and runs towards goal to shoot. Last night he was in a position to give the perfect assist at least two times but he failed to do so.

Anyway, come on AJAX. Big congratulations to the supporters and Zlatan who made sure that this long story finished in an exemplary fashion.

Match report is up on Ajax USA!

http://www.ajax-usa.com/matches/m04...-past-ajax.html