Ajax suffered a painful defeat at FC Augsburg (3-1) on Saturday, but Branco van den Boomen mainly points to the positive points afterwards. The midfielder, who wore the captain’s armband in the second half, thought Ajax’s game was good at times. “I’m standing here with mixed feelings,” said Van den Boomen in front of the camera Ziggo Sport.
Ajax went down in Augsburg due to individual mistakes by Gerónimo Rulli in particular, who made a huge blunder with the first goal against and looked bad with the second. Augsburg’s third goal was also caused by gunfire in the back of Ajax. “It’s not good that we lost, of course, but I think there were quite good phases in the match, but we also made too many mistakes,” says Van den Boomen.
“Not only with the goals against, but we have often lost the ball too easily. We have also created many opportunities ourselves, more than them.” Ajax was released twice for Augsburg goalkeeper Finn Dahmen, but both Brian Brobbey and Francisco Conceição missed the huge opportunity. “I liked the start of the first and second half of us,” says Van den Boomen. “In the first twenty minutes of both halves we were by far the better team. We showed many good combinations. Those are things we can build on.”
Van den Boomen touches on another bright spot. “We are grinding more and more patterns with Brian, who I thought was very strong today. He created chances himself, but also put midfielders to work through his running actions.” Now that Dusan Tadic is gone, Ajax is looking for a new leader. Van den Boomen is not afraid to take on that role. “Because I have been through the Kitchen Champion Division, I may bring a fighter mentality with me. I have come a long way and I want to show something. I try to convey that to the group. So far it is going well. I want to be important . I’m also a leader type.” After the break he wore the captain’s armband. “I don’t expect to be the real captain, but we’ll see.”