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Blog Post:
Ajax USA is back... but what did you miss?
by Menno Pot | January 26, 2008
So, Ajax USA is back, 100%. We're publishing match and news reports again, as if we've never been away, and we normally publish them on the day of the event. (That's what we try for, anyway.) You'd almost forget that our site had been out of commission for quite a while. In the weeks before the site went down altogether, we had already begun experiencing a few brief periods of unavailability. And then, disaster... the site was completely unavailable for several weeks toward the end of 2007. Eventually, we came back in a rudimentary and hobbled form, with very little style and navigation and none of our legacy content available.
It was all just as annoying to us as it was to you...
From now on, you can count on us again. If there's any important Ajax news, you will be able to read about it on Ajax USA. Immediately, in most cases. Our editorial policy is still the same. Which means we're terrifyingly reliable. We only publish confirmed facts. No rumors. And now, you can even subscribe to Ajax news, and match reports for that matter, via our new RSS feeds.
Anyway, it's good to be back. There's a few things we were unable to tell you about. It's all old news now, and most of it will not have gone unnoticed as it happened, but for the sake of completeness we'll catch up with you anyway.
The first hiatus in our archives of match reports was on 22 February 2007: we never published a report of the return leg against SV Werder Bremen, in the UEFA Cup. In case you didn't know: we crashed out (as you'd expect after a 3-0 stuffing in Germany). But it must be said: the boys did themselves proud. Leonardo gave Ajax a dream start (3'), ten minutes later Almeida seemed to kill all our hopes (13'), but after Huntelaar (60') and Babel (74') had made it 3-1 to Ajax, Werder Bremen were seriously, seriously terrified for a while, as a roaring ArenA (38,000 people) started to believe in a miracle... which didn't happen, eventually.
You actually didn't miss too many match reports. We posted a bunch on Ajax Talk (and published them on Ajax USA as soon as the site was back up) and also published match reports on that little, ugly, temporary site that we had for a while, remember? [But hey, it was a lot of work to cobble together that little, ugly, temporary site. - jim ;-) ]
The only other match report we never published was RKC Waalwijk vs Ajax on Sunday 08 April 2007. It was one of Ajax's darkest days ever in the Dutch Eredivisie. PSV had lost at NEC (2-0) on Saturday evening. A win at RKC (17th on the table) would have made Ajax the new league leaders, with only thee relatively easy matches left to play. But Ajax blew it. They took the lead twice (Gabri in the 9th and Sneijder in the 21th minutes), but conceded two equalizers: one from (ouch...) Ajax loanee Jan Vertonghen (10') and one from Berger (71'). What a terrible, terrible day, especially when coach Henk ten Cate said that Ajax had closed in on PSV... Horrible.
Speaking of Henk ten Cate: he's gone. It happened while we were having our break (on 11 October 2007) and we never published a news report. Ten Cate was under pressure and the fans were turning against him when he student-lid reached an agreement with Chelsea, to become the assistant of their manager, Avraham Grant. All of a sudden he was gone, but nobody seemed to think it was much of a disaster, although the Ajax board (of course) said that they were very, very sorry about the sudden departure of their head-coach.
Adrie Koster, head-coach of Young Ajax, was almost immediately appointed as Ten Cate's temporary successor – and it wasn't long before technical director Martin van Geel admitted that Koster would finish the 2007-2008 season. Koster is still in charge, as you may have noticed. His assistant at Young Ajax, Aron Winter, is now in charge of that team.
The only other news report we would normally have published, but never saw the light of day was about Thomas Vermaelen. The 22 year-old defender penned a contract renewal on 06 December 2007. His old deal would have expired in the summer of 2010. He has now committed to Ajax until 30 June 2012.
Vermaelen signed his new deal while he was injured (ankle) – and he still is. As you know, we sometimes run it as news when a player picks up a serious injury. But not always. There's no 'rule', but in most cases we will run it as news if a player is sidelined for six weeks or more. If it's less than that, we will probably mention it in a match report or something.
Vermaelen has been out for a long time, but when he first picked up this ankle injury it wasn't clear that it was going to keep him sidelined for so long, so we probably woudn't have published a report on it, anyway. Same goes for Gregory van der Wiel's injury. Vermaelen and Van der Wiel are almost ready to return to action now.
That's about it, we reckon. That's what you've missed. From now on, you won't miss a thing. Thanks for your patience. And thanks for your support. We do this for you. And because it's fun. Stay tuned.
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Submitted by gordonvandekamp at January 29, 2008:
Submitted by gordonvandekamp at January 29, 2008:
Submitted by Dan at January 28, 2008:
Submitted by Jim McGough at January 26, 2008: