Friday, April 29, 2022 at 7:56 PM• Mart van Mourik • Last update: 19:58

Remko Pasveer thinks that Ajax could have set a new record if he had not been injured. Until the closing item was injured at the end of February, Ajax only conceded five goals in the Eredivisie. Afterwards, the number of goals against in the competition increased to fifteen. The record for fewest goals against in an Eredivisie season is still in the name of FC Twente, which only conceded thirteen goals in the 1972/72 season. In the Youtube program In the car with Andy the closing post calls it ‘bizarre’ that Ajax now has to fish balls out of the net so often.

“It went really well, didn’t it?”, Van der Meijde refers to the good run that Ajax put down with Pasveer under the bar. “Seventeen times zero in twenty games”, the goalkeeper uses the statistics to emphasize the impressive series. Ajax managed to keep a ‘clean sheet’ in seventeen games of the twenty matches with Pasveer on target. “I also really think that if I hadn’t been injured we would have really made a shot at the record,” said the goalkeeper. “I think the record was 13 goals against. Seventies I thought. But then I got injured and basically all the dynamics in the back were gone. You have to change of course. Different keeper, different security.”

After Pasveer’s injury, André Onana replaced the goalkeeper under the bar for the team from Amsterdam. With the Cameroonian goalie, however, the team only managed to keep a clean sheet once and Ajax conceded eleven goals in eight competition matches with Onana on goal. “Seventeen zeros in twenty games is really bizarre.” Van der Meijde concludes that Ajax’s defense is less stable in the latter part of the season. “There must be a reason. You fill it in. I already know, but I’m not saying it,” responds the former football player with a laugh. “No, that’s too easy. You sometimes say it jokingly, but that’s too easy,” concludes Pasveer.

With Pasveer under the bar, Ajax seemed well on its way to breaking the record of the team with the fewest number of goals against in one season, which is still in the name of FC Twente. The Tukkers only managed to concede thirteen goals in the 1970/71 season and they still hold the record more than fifty years later, partly due to the poor series of Ajax in recent weeks. Incidentally, the team from Amsterdam still has by far the least number of goals against in the Eredivisie this season. Feyenoord is second in that regard with 29 goals against.