John Heitinga holds on to the basic place for Youri Baas at home against Fortuna Sittard on Sunday. The coach of Ajax defends himself for this choice against Hans Kraay junior, who did not think Baas played well in the TOTO KNVB Cup against Feyenoord (1-2 win). “I want to see him in a number of matches and give him the chance,” says Heitinga. The game starts at 4:45 PM and can be seen live on ESPN 2.
Baas is in the base for the third time in a row instead of Owen Wijndal. “I think Youri is a player who is still unknown to many,” thinks Heitinga, who already worked with the twenty-year-old defender at Jong Ajax. “Youri has a good sense of where to be in position. He can get into midfield. He knows when to be low and when to be high.”
Kraay junior does not entirely agree. “Against Feyenoord he was often in possession of the ball too deep, so that Alireza Jahanbakhsh was free in his back. Do you agree with me?” Heitinga does not deny it. “Yes, okay Hans, but a young player has to make progress. He has also done a lot of things well.” Heitinga is forced to make one change in his line-up: Florian Grillitsch joins the team for the injured Mohammed Kudus.
“Florian has no stress on the ball,” explains Heitinga. Grillitsch ends up in midfield, leaving Steven Berghuis on the right side of the attack. “Florian can move and distribute the game. I expect that we will often have the ball in the opponent’s half and he will have to play an important role there.” Davy Klaassen has fully recovered from the lighter he got on the back of his head in De Kuip and is in the starting line-up. “Davy is completely fit and will play a little ‘under’ Dusan (Tadic, ed.).” Heitinga knows what Ajax has to do. “We want to play the Champions League next year and then you just have to win all the games.”
Setup Ajax: Rulli; Sanchez, Timber, Alvarez, Baas; Grillitsch, Taylor, Klaassen; Mountain House, Tadic, Mountain Wine.
Setup Fortuna Sittard: Pandur; Pinto, Guth, Siovas, Vita; Erdogan, Bistrovic, Ozkayup; Noslin, Yilmaz, Cordoba.