Zlatan, Ajax outpace Djurgardens IF in comfortable friendly win
0 (0) - 5
(2)
Friendly
Olympic Stadium,
Stockholm
Tuesday, 14 October, 2003
Ajax played an unusual 'inter-season' friendly at
reigning Swedish champions Djurgårdens IF in Stockholm
and prevailed in an entertaining match, 0-5. The
hosts came to the fight with almost a full strength squad.
Only Swedish international Kim Källström and Dutchman
Geert den Ouden were rested from the start. Ajax, meanwhile,
fielded a surprisingly strong line-up as well. Koeman chose not
to rest Zlatan Ibrahimovic, despite the Swede's niggling
groin injury, and also gave 'regulars Escudé,
Pienaar and Maxwell a go from the start. Ibrahimovic served as
Ajax captain for the day, for the first time in his young
career.
Steven Pienaar, playing against
Djurgården in a
specially
made "Alfred Berg" shirt. [Photo: Gerard van
Hees/Ajax.nl]
Djurgården played as they usually do: in an Ajax-style
4-3-3 formation. Head coach Sören Åkeby stated prior
to the game that even though it was slightly bad timing for the
game they would play it with good intentions and take it
seriously. But as it was a training game he hinted that many
subs would be used.
The game started off in a high tempo which Djurgården
couldn't really manage. Ajax passed the ball around
confidently, with Maxwell distinguishing himself with
several nice moves. Whenever Djurgården won the ball
the speed of play proved a bit too much for them, and the
ball often ended up back in an Ajax player's feet.
Djurgården did show some good intentions in
counter-attacks during the first ten minutes.
The first really dangerous chance came from some crisp
moves by Jesper Blomqvist on the left flank. The former Swedish
international passed to a seemingly free Bapupa in front
of the Ajax goal, but Bapupa's shot was deflected by an
onrushing Heitinga.
After the first ten minutes the tempo slowly decreased and
the players didn't seem to make the runs needed to get a good
attack started. The cold Stockholm night didn't help: Ajax's
Brazilians, for example, looked none too comfortable.
In the following period Ajax had some half-chances, including
one for Zlatan, an Escudé volley following a corner
and a harmless Pienaar shot.
Even though there was a lack of aggression on the
pitch, there was plenty among the crowd. The Djurgården
supporters had decided not to give Zlatan Ibrahimovic a
warm welcome to his homeland and yelled things about
supposed 'extra curricular activities' of his. They seemed to
think he had gone to Amsterdam to work in the red light
district - rather than the red and white shirt...
Maybe they shouldn't have bothered him. Just after the
30 minute mark, Zlatan received a good pass from Maxwell along
the left flank. He discarded one Djurgården player with a
feint, advanced two steps forward into the middle, and then
released a hard shot from one meter outside of the area,
beating Swedish international goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson and
finding the net just inside the left post: 0-1.
Zlatan Ibrahimoviç opens the scoring for Ajax. [Photo:
Gerard van Hees/Ajax.nl]
From this point, Ajax completely dominated the game and
Pienaar nearly scored with a great shot that went just over the
bar. In the final seconds of the first half, Zlatan stole the
ball from the last central defender and advanced almost to the
exact same position as his first goal, and his ensuing shot had
the exact same destination: 0-2. Djurgården didn't even
get to kick off before the referee blew his whistle for half
time.
A fine game up to the half-way mark. In friendlies,
however, numerous substitutions frequently ruin the
play in the second half. Djurgården came out with almost
a completely new eleven for the second half, the result of
which was a difference in class. Meanwhile, Ajax made several
changes as well, including Soetaers for Zlatan, Sneijder for
Maxwell, Boschker for Stekelenburg and Vermaelen (the first
team début for the Young Ajax defender!) for
Escudé. During the course of the second half Jari
Litmanen made his long-anticipated return to Ajax-1 action.
Young Ajax's Michael Krohn-Dehli and Anthony Obodai
also entered the game.
Not much happened in the second half until Heitinga made a
dreadful pass which almost resulted in a Djurgården goal.
But from that moment on there was only one team on the pitch.
Ajax dominated all the aspects of the game and Jelle Van Damme
earned particular praise by taking care of business in defence
and making some good moves forward during the game.
Djurgården nearly scored in the 60th minute, but Boschker
made an acrobatic save, jumping backwards before securing the
ball on the line.
In the 79th minute Krohn Dehli was brought down in the right
side of Djurgården's area and the ref blew the whistle
for a penalty. Up stepped Jari Litmanen, who received much more
applause than Ibrahimovic, to secure the Ajax victory with a
clinical finish to the left: 0-3.
Jari Litmanen returns to Ajax 1 -
and scores a goal
from the penalty spot. [Photo: Gerard van Hees/Ajax.nl]
Djurgården more or less caved in after this, and Ajax
had a free run in the final ten minutes. Sneijder threw away a
couple of nice chances to counter-attack with some sloppy
passing. However, Litmanen showed complete focus
throughout the game, including a lovely pass to Tom
Soetaers, who could have finished it off himself but instead
passed to an onrushing Jelle Van Damme. The on-form
Belgian defender touched it subtly with his left foot
to score his first ever Ajax goal: 0-4.
As the crowd started to leave Stockholm's Olympic
Stadium, Sneijder executed a carbon-copy of Litmanen's
pass to Soetaers, who once again found himself face-to-face
with the keeper and once again chose for the
unselfish alternative, passing to Obodai who finished off
the day with (for him, too) his first-ever Ajax-1 goal: 0-5
(87').
On the whole the game was quite good, especially in the
first half. With Zlatan on the pitch the crowd at least had a
subject on whom to vent their anger. In the second half the
tempo and passing quality decreased and Djurgården were
simply not able to put up a significant fight. Kudos to Jelle
Van Damme, who won just about every ball he went
for - and scoring is not an every-day thing for him
either. Michael Krohn-Dehli was good on the right wing position
during the few minutes he got to play. And Maxwell was
pure class - all the way through.
This match report was written by our special guest
writer Per Nilsson, 'our man in
Stockholm'.
GOALS
- 32' 0-1 Zlatan Ibrahimovic
- 45' 0-2 Zlatan Ibrahimovic
- 79' 0-3 Jari Litmanen (penalty)
- 82' 0-4 Jelle Van Damme
- 87' 0-5 Anthony Obodai
Referee: Eriksson
Cards: none
Attendance: 9,274
Ajax line-up: Stekelenburg (46. Boschker);
De Jong, Heitinga, Escudé (46. Vermaelen), Van Damme;
Yakubu, Pienaar (46. Sneijder), Maxwell (46. Obodai); Wamberto
(46. Krohn-Dehli), Ibrahimovic (46. Soetaers), Mitea (73.
Litmanen).
Djurgårdens IF line-up first half:
Isaksson; Rasck, Kuivasto, Karlsson, Stenman; Bergtoft, Arneng,
Johansson; Stefanidis, Bapupa, Blomqvist.
Djurgårdens IF line-up second half:
Isaksson (77. Alé); Mbemba, Storm, Spong, Henriksson;
Bergtoft (73. Shhadeh), Bapupa, Sjölund; Makondele,
Cederqvist, Wowoah.
Related Links:
