Surprisingly, Ajax reached the semi-finals in the Champions League in the 2018/19 season. In the past year, the group stage was the final station after a 0-1 defeat against Valencia in-house. In retrospect, given the ongoing corona crisis, it is not a disaster that Ajax was eliminated early in the billions ball at the time, according to club watcher Mike Verweij.

“The elimination in the group stage of the previous Champions League by Valencia was a hangover for the staff, players, club management and fans of Ajax, but afterwards turned out to be a blessing for Amsterdam and perhaps the whole of the Netherlands”, Verweij writes in his column on Thursday. The Telegraph. “Not Ajax, but Valencia therefore played the eighth final of the million ball against Atalanta, a match that later turned out to be a corona bomb.” The match in question took place at the San Siro with the support of around 40,000 Atalanta supporters.

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“Not knowing that the coronavirus was already among them, the supporters were packed in the train to and the metro from Milan, in the packed cafes before the match were drunk and after the resounding victory (4-1) another party was thrown. “Verweij continues with his analysis. “Four days later, on February 23, the first positive corona test was officially reported in Italy.” The consequences of this were particularly felt in Bergamo. “Within weeks the ICs, all wards and even the corridors of the Bergamo hospitals were full of Covid-19 patients, the crematoria could no longer cope with the bodies of the mostly elderly residents of the city and the army was called in to the seem to be hiding. “

“That the game had indeed been a ‘biological bomb’, was evident from the infections in Valencia, which could be traced back to Northern Italy”, concludes Verweij, who once again brings the possible catastrophic consequences for Ajax into the limelight. “If not Valencia, but Ajax had continued, the Amsterdam club would probably have been supported by a multiple of the 2500 fans that Valencia brought with them. With potentially major health consequences for Amsterdam and the Netherlands”, the Ajax follower said.