[1328] Of Ajax wins season opener yet again

Only one goal differentiated between the winner and the loser and Ajax came up on top for the third consecutive time against PSV:

AMSTERDAM, Aug 11 (Reuters) – Spaniard Gabri struck two minutes before halftime to guide Ajax Amsterdam to a 1-0 victory over PSV Eindhoven on Saturday, earning their third consecutive Dutch Super Cup. [Ajax land Dutch Super Cup thanks to Gabri goal. Theo Ruizenaar. Reuters. August 11 2007]

The next match for Ajax will be the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League against Slavia Prague. Ajax last met a Czech team in the 2006/07 UEFA Cup tournament group stage; the game against Sparta Prague ended up scoreless. About a year earlier, the Ajax and Sparta met in the group stage of the Champions League: Ajax won a game and drew another with the Czech.

For the whole season in general, Ajax will be without Babel; Liverpool bought him for approximately EUR17 million. Another star that could leave Ajax is Sneijder. That however could only happened if Real Madrid could come up with EUR27 million:

There were reports this morning that an agreement has been reached over a 25 million euro move.

However, it has since emerged that Real Madrid and Ajax are still separated by 3 million euros.

Los Merengues’ final offer of 24 million euros has been turned down, with Ajax demanding 27m in order to let their star midfielder go. [Sneijder Move In Doldrums As Ajax Demand 27M. Goal.com. August 11 2007]

That might be simply be a rumor because:

20 July: Players coming or going? That’s news. But a player staying? That’s normally not very spectacular news, but there are exceptions to the rule. Wesley Sneijder had some big news to announce at a special press conference in De Lutte today: he will stay at Ajax for another season. “This decision gives me peace of mind,” the 23 year-old midfielder said. “We can have a great season with Ajax. We’re going for the title and I believe we can reach far in the Champions League.” [Sneijder has made up his mind: “I’m staying”. Ajax USA. July 20 2007]

Kenneth Perez is another player that left Ajax. He had problem the manager Henk de Cate. I think the fact that he went over to PSV expressed that problem rather well.

Huntelaar, possibly Ajax’s best buy in recent years has also been heavily subjected to rumor but the player himself has stated that he will stay at Ajax at least another year:

“People have said to me: ‘Are you sure you don’t want to make the step?’ So I gave it some thought and consciously decided that I don’t. I want to develop in Holland for another season. After that, a move abroad could be more logical. The most important thing is to keep an eye on your own development: it should continue at the right pace. Right now, I feel that I can still book progress in Holland, in every way.” [Sportweek Magazine via AjaxUSA. July 2007]

At the moment, I could only identified a few players that have been with Ajax since players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Rafael van der Vaart, Steven Pienaar, Nigel de Jong, Hatem Trabelsi, Julien Escudé and my favorite, Christian Chivu played together. They are Maarten Stekelenburg, John Heitinga, Thomas Vermaelen, Hedwiges Maduro, Wesley Sneijder, Jan Vertonghen and Nicolae Mitea. While that era comes nowhere to the glorious mid-1990s, I really miss that team.

There are new players too though not as much-celebrated as Babel, Sneijder and Huntelaar. One of them is a youngster Luis Suárez of Uruguay. I am unsure how good he is but Uruguayans seem to have a lot of trust in him. First brought to the Eredivisie by Groningen, Ajax managed to secure the player’s service by compensating Groningen with more than EUR7.5 million.

And then there is Dennis Rommedahl, a former PSV player and one thing I remember about him is that he is a fast winger. I am actually feeling quite uneasy about Ajax and PSV reusing each other players but I suppose the Kluivert-Stam thing kind of turned out okay, for Ajax at least.

Other new players include Jurgen Colin as well as a couple others from the Youth squad. The young player to watch is possibly Gregory van der Wiel.

Let us see how this new team will perform.

Haha, let us see how Feyenoord will perform! I can’t wait to screw them again and again, through and through!