Cristian Willaert was in disbelief when Ajax’s line-up was announced for the match against Brighton & Hove Albion. The ESPNreporter could not believe that John van ‘t Schip would start with Devyne Rensch as center back. However, when Willaert went to investigate, he was disappointed. ‘Leak’ Remko Pasveer revealed that Rensch would really start in the center.
Since Ar’Jany Martha was expected in the starting line-up, he was not on the starting sheet on Thursday. It did have the names of Anton Gaaei and Rensch on it. According to the information passed on, the latter would start as a centre-back. Willaert refused to believe that.
“You would then have different names in three positions at the back, and Ajax is already looking for stability,” said the journalist. With this he referred to Sunday’s line-up, in which Hato, Sutalo and therefore Rensch are in a different position.
“And UEFA is almost always wrong,” Willaert claimed. However, he then decided to play it safe and investigate.
“I spoke to a player from the selection, and he said that Rensch plays centrally and Hato plays left back,” Willaert said to the camera a little later. “If he doesn’t tell the truth, he will get very bad ratings on the report in the near future!”
The camera then zoomed in on Pasveer, who was quietly warming up. The veteran turned out to be ‘the leak’ to the media. John van ‘t Schip confirmed a little later that Rensch would indeed start as center back.
“If UEFA has passed that on, we will put him there,” the Ajax coach laughed when asked. “We hope to do it in a way that will help the team. We know that Brighton plays a certain way and it is up to us to show it.”