Ajax was linked to Liverpool, Atalanta and FC Midtjylland in the draw for the group stage of the Champions League, so that the team from Amsterdam ended up in a pretty strong group. Liverpool, the winner of two seasons ago and the reigning champion of England, will be the first opponent on Wednesday, so Erik ten Hag and his men immediately start a tough match. Ruud Gullit, however, thinks that Ajax does not view the encounter that way.

“Ajax was very happy with the draw because you want to play against a team like Liverpool, you want to play against the best opponents. So this is a good draw for the Dutch ”, Gullit says on the official website of the Reds. “This is a new team and they have sold a lot of players again. They have a team that wants to play against teams that also want to play football, because they have a hard time against teams that stay behind the ball and fall far back. I can remember when Ajax played against Real Madrid (in the eighth finals of the Champions League season 2018/19, ed.) And they were the boss. They hope to do that against Liverpool too. ”

Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp has the necessary personnel problems in the run-up to the match in the Johan Cruijff ArenA. Virgil van Dijk has been sidelined for a long time with a serious knee injury and his fellow defender Joël Matip is also in doubt. In midfield there is a question mark behind the name of Thiago Alcántara: “Yes, he had a blow, a big blow”, Klopp tells Monday about Thiago, who on Saturday in the Merseyside Derby against Everton received a big tackle from Richarlison. “We have to see. It is not nearly as serious as with Van Dijk, but whether he is ready for Wednesday? I do not know yet. We have to wait.”

The return of Naby Keïta could be offset by the possible absence of Thiago. The midfielder was missing on Saturday due to a positive corona test, but has now resumed training: “He trained yesterday (Sunday, ed.), So that’s very positive,” Klopp says about the Guineans. “We still have to understand exactly how this works if a boy didn’t show symptoms like Naby. To be fair, he looked very good in practice. But I don’t know how he is today, how he reacted to it. That is much more important. So we’ll see. At this point I would expect him to be there, but I don’t know. ”