Wesley Sneijder looked with some surprise at the interview of Erik ten Hag prior to Ajax’s Champions League match at Sporting Portugal. Ten Hag opposes RTL7 that Ajax has to play ‘stoic’ to have a chance, but Sneijder does not understand what the trainer of the team from Amsterdam means by that.
“Marcel pretends he understands, hey”, Sneijder responds to Ten Hag’s interview with the reporter of RTL 7. “You can ask what he means by that? I really have no idea what he means by ‘stoic’”, says Sneijder with a laugh. Ten Hag responds to Marcel Maijer’s question about the expectations surrounding Sporting, and what the right formula would be to control the Portuguese.
“You have to play stoically,” says Ten Hag. “You have to play your own game and then you have a good chance of winning this match. It is a good team, but we are also a good team. We have a lot of self awareness and we will play our own game. So that means playing with high pressure, being good on the ball and looking for the surplus situation from the middle. You know that you are not going to create many opportunities at this level and that is also the lesson we have to take from last year. Last season we had the first chance of the match every time and we just have to take it,” concludes Ten Hag, who also explains his choice to let Steven Berghuis play from the number ten position.
“First of all, we think he will get more freedom, provided the midfield runs well and he moves well too. It will have to be seen how quickly he can pick it up. He asked a different question, and he has to take a number of steps in that regard. Of course it is also different in terms of positioning, but on Saturday evening he did an excellent job in the first half,” said Ten Hag.
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