It is still uncertain whether Maarten Stekelenburg will be available at Ajax on Thursday evening in the home match against AS Roma in the quarter finals of the Europa League. A final judgment will be made at a later stage about the goalkeeper, who was injured against sc Heerenveen (1-2 win) in the warm-up on Sunday, Erik ten Hag reports at the press conference on Wednesday afternoon. There is therefore a chance that Kjell Scherpen will make his European debut for Ajax in the Johan Cruijff ArenA on Thursday.
“We are going to wait and see Stekelenburg”, explains Ten Hag at the press conference in the run-up to the first meeting with AS Roma in a European context. “It is not a long-term problem, but we will see whether it will go fast enough for tomorrow evening,” said the coach of the leader in the Eredivisie, who also indicates that Stekelenburg will train with Ajax’s A-selection on Wednesday. “That is the intention. But we are now also working on him and we are actually looking from hour to hour how that goes and whether he can take the next step.”
Ten Hag is then asked whether he intends to extensively test Stekelenburg on the race day himself, to see if the knee injury has completely disappeared. “We decide that at the end of the day (Wednesday, ed.)”, Is the answer of the Ajax coach. On Thursday-evening, Ten Hag will not have access to the unregistered Sébastien Haller and the injured Daley Blind at the the Dutch squad. André Onana and Noussair Mazraoui have also not been available for a long time. In addition, there are question marks behind the names of Perr Schuurs (knee injury) and Sean Klaiber (become a father) regarding the visit of AS Roma to Amsterdam.
“The hope is that all three of them will be there tomorrow”, Ten Hag continues to look optimistically to the future. “Blind, Haller, Mazraoui and Onana are missing. Mazraoui has taken the first step towards the group. Mazraoui is a very good player who we miss very much. But we can take all four of them. Devyne Rensch and Jurriën Timber have done well”, this is how the coach of Ajax concludes his preview. The first whistle of Ajax’s home game with AS Roma sounds on Thursday evening at 9 p.m.
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