Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 3:46 PM• Tom Rofekamp • Last update: 15:49

Calvin Bassey is the dissonant at Ajax in the first half of De Classic, the analysts conclude ESPN. The mandekker played a negative leading role in Feyenoord’s opening goal and could well be succumbing to the pressure in the Johan Cruijff ArenA, thinks Marciano Vink. “If something goes wrong, you get a kind of snowball effect.”

According to Vink, Bassey looked anything but good at Santiago Giménez’s 0-1, although Mohammed Kudus also has to pay for it. “If you look at how Kudus sleeps and how Bassey forgets that Giménez is participating at all: that’s just very strange. Bassey has been in the middle all the time and had no idea where Giménez is. In my opinion, that is not possible if you start from wants to leave your mark on the game the first moment,” says Vink.

Santiago Gimenez moves @Feyenoord quickly ahead in De Classic! ???????? #ajafey

— ESPN NL (@ESPNnl) March 19, 2023

Presenter Jan Joost van Gangelen adds ‘that Bassey seems to be under 220 volts’. “That could also be related to tension,” speculates Vink. “It’s a young boy, it’s a must win for Ajax, then it may just be that the tension becomes too much for you at a given moment. If something goes wrong, you see a kind of snowball effect. Then everything else goes wrong. Now that he has had a rest, it is possible that he will play a hell of a second half.”