Sébastien Haller scored the only goal during RKC Waalwijk – Ajax (0-1) on Sunday and was ESPN elected Man of the Match, but Ronald de Boer’s choice falls on someone else. The analyst of the pay channel lights up on talk show This was the Weekend Lisandro Martínez’s performance. Ajax’s central defender rarely ran into problems, De Boer notes.
During the program, a few moments are highlighted when Martínez intercepts RKC passes at the right time, uses good tackles and easily finds his teammates. “Martínez was really good in my opinion. He has duel power and the willingness to give one hundred percent in every match. He also won the most number of duels,” says De Boer. Martínez won 5 of his 7 duels and scored relatively well, but in absolute numbers, Edson Álvarez and Sébastien Haller (both 6 out of 14) won more.
“The funny thing is: in the last 16 games Martínez had a starting place and he played 90 minutes 15 times. In the 26 games before that, he only had 7 starting places. You can no longer ignore him from this Ajax “, the analyst continues.” If you also see his peace at the ball … It is not only that he is a latino can fight and hoe, but he can also just play football well. He is only 1 meter 78, quite small for a central defender, but has a great header. He never panics at the ball. For me he is the man of the match, because of the football he showed for ninety minutes against RKC. “
Kenneth Perez sees a more important role for Martínez at Ajax, now that Daley Blind is in the rag basket with an ankle injury. “He is one of the players who must step forward now that Daley Blind is not there. The build-up must be able to start well with him. He can indeed play football. We also talked about it on Thursday (around the game against AS Roma, ed.) : he was actually ‘gone’ for a while and no longer in the picture, “said Perez. Martínez was on the field against RKC for ninety minutes. He made the most successful passes of all Ajax players (67) and recorded the highest passing accuracy (91.8 percent), but did get a yellow card in the second half.