For a long time, Feyenoord seemed on its way to the first victory in the Eredivisie on Sunday visiting Ajax since August 2005. In the final phase it went completely wrong, when Dusan Tadic curled a free kick in the intersection and Antony scored the 3- 2 inshot for the leader. Arne Slot watches afterwards ESPN with mixed feelings back on the equalizer of Tadic, who saw the ball disappear into the goal over the helpless Ofir Marciano.
Slot does not want to publicly reproach Marciano, but the Feyenoord coach comes back to Tadic’s goal in the 78th minute afterwards. “I don’t think he looks back on it with a good feeling. But it was a very good goal from Tadic in terms of quality, you have to take that into account. It was a crucial moment, because until that moment it was restless in the Arena.” , Slot refers to the dissatisfaction among the Ajax crowd after Guus Til’s 1-2 in the first half. The defeat in Amsterdam is a major blow to the visitors’ coach, especially because until the final phase there seemed to be no problem for Feyenoord in De Classic.
† @AFCAjax It’s all about, thanks to goals from Tadic and Antony it’s 3-2! #jafey pic.twitter.com/Wu88DzcPOo
— ESPN NL (@ESPNnl) March 20, 2022
“Certainly when Brian Brobbey missed that header in front of an open goal”, Slot continues his analysis of the Classic in the Johan Cruijff ArenA that ended disappointingly for Feyenoord. “I didn’t think Ajax played well and we defended well and were also good in the match. We were under more and more pressure, but there was no reason to expect that goal would fall. Especially not at the time when the goal fell”, Slot once again refers to Tadic’s 2-2 with twelve minutes left on the clock. Feyenoord could have and perhaps should have been at 1-3 then. Cyriel Dessers decided to shoot himself in a promising position, where he might have been better off playing the completely detached Jens Toornstra. Dessers’ shot went wide of André Onana’s goal.
“That was an important point in the game,” sighs the losing coach. “If he (Dessers, ed.) keeps the overview and looks next to him, he sees that Jens is free. But he is also full in his action and Jens was behind the ball, I don’t know if you can coach that. The quality Cyriel is also that he can shoot and score from all angles, but when he sees the overview images, I think he also comes to the conclusion that giving in would have been a better choice,” said Slot.
Ofir Marciano had no answer to Dusan Tadic’s free kick in the final phase of Ajax-Feyenoord.