Summing Up the Season

Before the start of the 2000-2001 season, new Ajax coach Co Adriaanse said he had three goals for this year: bringing youth players into the team, playing offensive football and finishing somewhere in the top 5 of the Eredivisie table. Looking at the plain facts, he succeeded in all three of them: players such as Rafaël van der Vaart (18), Cedric van der Gun (22), Andy van der Meyde (21), Yakubu Abubakari (19), Petri Pasanen (19), Pius Ikedia (20) and Daniël Cruz (20) were offered plenty of playing time, Ajax' 85 goals made them the most productive team in the Eredivisie and - most importantly - Ajax finished third on the table, thereby earning the right to play preliminary games for the Champions League.

However, there were reasons for the fans to be dissatisfied as well. You can see why if we compare this season's results with the results of last season:

                PLAYED  WON  DRAWS  DEFEATS  POINTS  GOAL DIFF.
     
     1999-2000:   34    18     7       9       61      72-51
     2000-2001:   34    18     7       9       61      85-43

Apart from the goal difference (more goals scored, less goals conceded than last year, doubling the difference from +21 to +42) Ajax booked exactly the same results as last season, as far as the numbers of wins, draws, defeats and - logically - points are concerned. It was good enough to finish two positions higher on the ranking: 3rd, versus 5th last season.

Ajax' 85 goals are unrivalled. Champions PSV come closest: 73 goals. On the other hand, no less than six clubs conceded less goals than Ajax. The largest home victory was the 9-0 goalfest against Sparta, whereas the largest away victory was booked in the first round of the UEFA Cup, humiliating Belgian opponent AA Ghent, 0-6 (the largest-but-one European away victory in club history, second only to 1979's 1-8 win at Helsingin JK). The largest league victory in an away game was the 0-3 win over NAC, in Breda. Shota Arveladze became the topscorer, with 18 goals (in 27 games, an average of 0.66 per game). Nikos Machlas' average is almost exactly as good: his 12 goals in 19 games make for an average score of 0.63 per game.

The largest defeat of the season was suffered in the very first away game of the season, at Sparta (3-0). The three home defeats Ajax suffered were all by one goal: 0-1 against PSV, 3-4 against Feyenoord and 1-2 against Vitesse.

Final table, 2000-2001 (TeleText)

One of the most remarkable facts of this season's Eredivisie campaign were the bad results against Holland's traditional top opponents: the four games against Feyenoord and PSV only brought Ajax one point (a 1-1 draw in Eindhoven). The last time the score was that bad, was in 1984-1985, which was also the last time that Feyenoord won both its league games against their Amsterdam rivals. Looking at their budget, Vitesse is Holland's fourth club. Ajax also lost both ties against the Arnhem team. One point out of six games against the three biggest clubs. Not much.

Last year's 41 yellow and 7 red cards formed a doubtful club record. This year, the Ajacieden's behaviour was much better. Only one Ajacied was sent off: goalkeeper Fred Grim, in Utrecht, but the referee's decision was later overruled by the KNVB, which made Grim the only Ajax player to have played in all 34 league games. 39 times, an Ajax player was booked. It will be surprising to many that two gracious players, Andy van der Meyde and Richard Witschge, top the list of bookings, with five each.

The biggest sportive disappointment of the season were probably the Amstel Cup and UEFA Cup campaigns, if you can even call them 'campaigns' in the first place. For the record: the domestic Amstel Cup campaign lasted eight minutes longer than last year's. Back then, Ajax lost in the first round after 90 minutes; Vitesse needed a 'golden goal' after eight minutes of extra time to eliminate the Amsterdammers in the first round: 1-2 at the ArenA. The UEFA Cup campaign was an even bigger disaster than last year's: back then, Ajax was eliminated in the third round by a Spanish opponent (Real Mallorca). This season, Ajax stumbled in the second round, against a modest opponent from Switzerland (Lausanne Sports).

Finally, despite the higher number of home victories and the increasing number of goals, the average number of spectators attending home games dropped to 36,689 from 40,873 last season, when Ajax had the highest average attendance in Holland. This season, Feyenoord home games were watched by an average of 920 more people, at 37,609 per game. (MP)