Ajax has qualified for the last eight of a European tournament for the third time in five seasons. After the final place in the Europa League in 2017 and the semi-final in the Champions League in 2019, Ten Hag’s team can call itself the quarter-finalist in the Europa League this season. After a 3-0 home win over Young Boys, Ajax was 0-2 too strong for the Swiss top club in Bern on Thursday evening due to goals from David Neres and Dusan Tadic. The Dutch newspapers saw the Dutch top club rule against Young Boys in two duels. In particular, the way in which Ryan Gravenberch showed himself is well received in the newspapers.
On the day that Ajax celebrated its 121st birthday, qualification for the last eight of the Europa League was secured. The Telegraph saw that it was soon over and out for Young Boys. “A good conquest of star Ryan Gravenberch and a pass from Dusan Tadic changed direction led to David Neres’ 0-1. It was three seconds before the digital clock jumped to 20:00. With that Ajax made an already special statistic even more beautiful. In the last 22 matches, the team from Amsterdam scored eighteen times in the first half, of which fourteen times in the first twenty minutes. ” Ajax’s second goal was scored by Tadic. The Serbian captain scored from eleven meters and thus sharpened impressive statistics: “After 137 official duels for Ajax, Tadic is involved in 138 goals”, the newspaper notes. Tadic is employed by Ajax on 74 goals and 64 assists.
It Algemeen Dagblad is looking forward to ‘Super April’, an important month for Ajax. On 5 and 12 April, the Ten Hag team will be aiming for a place in the semi-finals of the Europa League. “A week later, on April 18, the team from Amsterdam can obtain the first silverware of the season in the cup final in De Kuip against Vitesse”, it writes. AD. “And at the pace with which a street-length lead in the Eredivisie has been built up in recent times, it is not inconceivable that the unleashed team of Ten Hag will play the championship match in the last game of April, in the Johan Cruijff ArenA against AZ.” Who will be the opponent in the quarterfinals will be clear on Friday afternoon at the draw from 1 p.m.
For the third time in five years, Ajax comes far in Europe. “This actually fulfills one of the wishes of Johan Cruijff, who died almost five years ago, after the club icon unleashed the so-called velvet revolution more than ten years ago,” writes Willem Vissers van. de Volkskrant. “Cruijff thought that despite the changed financial relations in European top football, with a modest role for clubs from the smaller countries, Ajax was obliged to roguish against the European top. That works well, although the two consecutive eliminations in the group stage of the Champions League remain disappointing. ” Vissers also saw that Ten Hag could afford to exchange players such as Daley Blind, David Neres and Nicolás Tagliafico after the break because they would miss the first quarter final with a yellow card. “He brought Mohammed Kudus, Oussama Idrissi, Perr Schuurs, Brian Brobbey and Sean Klaiber, which also says something about Ajax’s wide selection.”
The only dissonance at Ajax narrowly escapes an unsatisfactory
Dusan Tadic was voted man of the match by Voetbalzone.
“Gravenberch applies for a place in the Dutch”, headlines Het Parool. According to the Amsterdam newspaper, the midfielder has undergone a metamorphosis. “From a playful, sometimes a bit dreamy midfielder, he has become the guiding and driving pivot of Ajax”, so sounds the analysis, which states that Gravenberch has made enormous progress in ‘actually all aspects of the game’. “He has shaken off naivety. The phases in matches in which he is ‘absent’ are getting shorter and shorter or have even disappeared completely. The eighteen-year-old Amsterdammer has become a more complete football player and plays concentrated. ” On Friday, national coach Frank de Boer will announce his final selection for the World Cup qualifying matches later this month with Turkey, Latvia and Gibraltar. Gravenberch is not in the European Championship selection of the Juniors, which could mean that he can look forward to a place in the Dutch national team. “He could form a strong tandem in midfield with Frenkie de Jong”, it sounds.
Also Faithful saw Gravenberch play a strong match in Bern, where Ajax looked stable according to the newspaper. “The stability is mainly because the defensive foundation has become good. Ten Hag realized in time that he needed the iron weavers Martínez and Álvarez for this. Around them walk players who once again prove how good their own training is. The ball-resistant Gravenberch has become such a fixed value that you almost forget that he is still only eighteen years old. ” Ten Hag is also praised in the newspaper. “The figures of the Ten Hag era are thus becoming more and more impressive. Since his appointment halfway through the 2017/2018 season, Ajax has earned a net 170 million euros on the transfer market. Under his leadership, an average of 2.43 points per game was achieved in exactly one hundred matches in the premier league. No trainer in history has ever done that better in the Netherlands. ”