May 1990
Ajax… Fifteen Years Ago
The Ajax supporters are slowly catching their breath after
the narrow escape against Roda JC in the last days of April.
Their championship dreams had almost gone up in smoke, but
thanks to Ron Willems' equalizer they can now count the days
until the very last and decisive Eredivisie fixture of the
season at NEC in Nijmegen. It's been five years since the last
Dutch championship in 1985. Ajax need one more
point…
Juicy detail: due to a change in the relegation rules NEC
also require one point. From now on only the bottom
two sides go down directly. The #16 will get a last
chance in a two-legged 'final' against the losers of the First
Division play-off final. The bottom side in the Eredivisie, as
well as the champions of the First Division, have been known
for weeks: Haarlem and SVV (from Schiedam), respectively. The
rest is still open. A draw will be enough for NEC to finish
16th and comdemn BVV Den Bosch to direct relegation. What will
NEC and Ajax do…?
The exodus from Amsterdam on Sunday 06 May is impressive. In
Nijmegen it appears that an estimated 75% of the 25,000
spectators at old, concrete De Goffert stadium supports Ajax.
It is a hot summer day. Thousands of fans are stripped to the
waist. The atmosphere is tense but exuberant.
NEC vs Ajax before the 'Pact' became effective: goalkeeper
Wilfried
Brookhuis saves Jan Wouters' attempt. [Photo: Voetbal
International]
In the first minutes of the game it definitely does
not look like NEC and Ajax agreed to a draw. The hosts
shock Ajax in the 19th minute, as defender Mitchell van der
Gaag's header slams home like a bombshell: 1-0. Once again a
nerve-wracking fight against time seems ahead. Luckily for the
thousands of traveling Ajax supporters the equalizer is on the
score-board only 16 minutes later. Wim Jonk is the scorer: the
born Volendammer calmly slots past goalkeeper Brookhuis after
good work by Stefan Pettersson.
After that… absolutely nothing happens. Did
the teams explicitly agree this, or is it simply what happens
if the teams don't wish the leave their own half of the pitch?
Fact is that Ajax sluggishly pass the ball around throughout
the second half. Not a single NEC player crosses the
middle-line. Every once in a while Ajax kick the ball forward
for the sake of formality, so that NEC can knock it around for
a few minutes. The spectators don't mind (after all they're all
happy with the 1-1 score…), but there is also a sense of
embarrassment. This is cheating. A disgrace.
Halfway through the second half the Ajax supporters
start their preparations for a 'good, old' pitch invasion:
hundreds, thousands of them climb the fencing and slide down
the grey cycling track of Goffert Stadium. Referee Houben and
the players tolerate it at first. The Ajax fans have no violent
intentions, but three minutes before the end a number of them
take the pitch, forcing referee Houben to send the teams into
the dressing rooms. There is confusion: was that the final
whistle? Are we the champions now? Or did he interrupt the
game? It turns out to be the latter. Riot police arrive on the
scene and for a few seconds it seems like things will get out
of hand. Luckily it doesn't. Not today. The folks on the pitch
are just happy that their club will finally get to
lift the championship shield again. The police know that a
pitch invasion will be inevitable anyway and choose a
reasonable approach: come on lads, get off that pitch and wait
on the stands for a few more minutes…
And so it happens: the teams return and lazily pass the ball
around for three more minutes, until referee Houben
does blow his whistle for the last time. Under a loud
roar thousands of Ajax supporters invade the pitch, hug their
players and each other and jump up and down in ecstacy. This
season was a rollercoaster ride and it never went smoothly, but
Leo Beenhakker's young and fickle Ajax team are the Dutch
champions of 1990! The shield may be lifted!
Champions! Ajax fans invade the pitch in Nijmegen. [Photo:
Voetbal International]
There is champagne in the dressing-room. Back in Amsterdam
an estimated 80,000 fans wait in front of the
Stadsschouwburg ('City Theatre') at Leidseplein for
their heroes to appear on the balcony for the traditional
shield presentation. The celebrations are colourful as always,
but when the dust settles there are also a few not-so-pretty
things to think about, such as the disgraceful way in which the
decisive point was notched (poor Den Bosch managed a fine win
over the league's #3, FC Twente, but got relegated thanks to
what the press are calling the 'Pact of Nijmegen'). Also, Ajax
now have to think back of that fatal evening in
September, the night of the 'bar incident' and the subsequent
UEFA verdict. For the first time since 1986 Ajax would have
played in the European Champions' Cup, but it will not
be…
1. Ajax
*
34-49 (67-23)
2. PSV
***
34-48 (94-36)
3. FC Twente **
34-42 (48-43)
4. Vitesse
** 34-41
(49-31)
5. Roda
JC **
34-41 (53-39)
6. FC Volendam
34-39 (43-38)
7.
RKC
34-37 (45-47)
8. Fortuna Sittard 34-38 (42-35)
9. FC Groningen
34-35 (50-46)
10. FC Den Haag
34-33 (58-63)
11.
Feyenoord
34-31 (51-45)
12.
Sparta
34-31 (51-61)
13. Willem
II 34-27
(42-29)
14. FC Utrecht
34-27 (27-45)
15.
MVV
34-27 (38-61)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
16. NEC
[PO]
34-26 (32-55)
------------------------------------
17. BVV Den Bosch **** 34-25 (30-51)
18. FC Haarlem **** 34-15 (22-74)
(* = champions but banned from
'Europe'; ** = UEFA Cup; *** = Cup Winners' Cup; **** =
relegated to First Division; [PO] = promotion/relegation
play-offs. Promoted from First Division: SVV, SC Heerenveen
[PO])
PSV end up with a trophy after all (they beat Vitesse 1-0 in
the KNVB Cup final), but by that time the World Cup in Italy is
already casting its shadow. Holland will go there as the
reigning European champions and one of the major favourites for
the title. Can the 'men in orange' finally win the trophy they
should have won in 1974? The current Dutch side has the quality
for it.
Champagne and the shield: Aron Winter, John van 't Schip,
Richard Witschge
and Danny Blind celebrate in the dressing room. [Photo:
Voetbal International]
Remarkably enough the seven Ajacieden in the squad of 22
(Jan Wouters, Richard Witschge, John van 't Schip, Bryan Roy,
Danny Blind, Aron Winter and Stanley Menzo) will go to Italy
with the coach they've worked with all season: Leo Beenhakker.
Holland qualified with Thijs Libregts at the helm, but he was
deemed 'not good enough' to take Oranje to Italy and
sent home with a 'golden handshake' from the KNVB. The players
urged the KNVB to assign Johan Cruyff. The 'Master' would have
been up for it this time, but KNVB official Rinus Michels
ignored the players and landed Beenhakker as the 'man for the
tournament'.
Throughout May both Ajax (or what's left of it after the
departure of the internationals) and Oranje tour The
Netherlands to play a series of friendlies. Ajax play
Spakenburg on the 9th (1-2), HRC on the 19th (0-5), a selection
of players from the Betuwe area on the 22nd (2-5), Venlo on the
25th (0-0) and CDW on the 29th (1-6). Their tour is interrupted
for a quick roundtrip to the United States, for a lucrative
friendly against the U.S. national team in Washington D.C. on
12 May (1-1).
The average Dutch football fan is unaware of Ajax's long but
unimportant string of post-season friendlies. Every newspaper
and every TV camera follows Oranje, who - after a few
training games against amateur sparring-partners - leave the
country on May 29th. On their way to Italy they will play two
last friendlies against World Cup participants. The first one,
against Austria in Vienna on May30th, comes as a bit of a shock
to the viewers in Holland: Oranje, with Wouters
and Witschge in the starting line-up and Bryan Roy as a second
half sub, are 3-0 down after 50 minutes (goals by Pecl, Zsak
and Pfeffer). Thanks to Ronald Koeman and Marco van Basten the
final score is not too embarrassing (3-2), but it certainly
isn't a reassuring result, nine days before the opening game of
the tournament in Milan - and less than two weeks before
Holland's first match in group F, against Egypt in Palermo on
the isle of Sicily… (MP)
Next month:
- World Cup '90: Oranje in Italy!
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