UEFA Cup: Ajax face Espanyol, Vienna, Prague and Zulte Waregem
03 October: "It would be nice if we got Espanyol,"
said Henk ten Cate when he sat down in front of
the TV in the board room at De Toekomst, holding a
sandwich and a cup of coffee, ready to watch the draw for the
UEFA Cup group stage. The Ajax boss got what he wanted: Ajax
are in group F with Espanyol (Spain), Austria
Vienna (Austria), Sparta
Prague (Czech Republic) and SV
Zulte Waregem (Belgium). They will play each opponent once.
Ten Cate was a satisfied man: "This is a nice group. Nice
opponents. It is also a group that we should get out of."
It is the first ever time for Ajax to play in the relatively
new group stage in the second round of the UEFA Cup. The
40 remaining teams in the competition were divided over
five bowls, based on their UEFA coefficients. Ajax were in bowl
1: the bowl for the eight highest seeded teams. For
each of the eight groups one team was drawn out of
each of the five bowls. A computer-controlled draw
determined the fixture lists for the eight groups, in which
each team will play two opponents at home and the other
two away. The top three teams from each group will advance to
the knock-out stages of the UEFA Cup. Ajax's fixture list is as
follows:
- Matchday 1, Thu 19 Oct: no
fixture
- Matchday 2, Thu 02 Nov, 20.45 CET: Ajax
- FK Austria Wien
- Matchday 3, Thu 23 Nov, 20.45 CET: AC
Sparta Praha - Ajax
- Matchday 4, Thu 30 Nov, 20.45 CET: Ajax
- RCD Espanyol
- Matchday 5, Wed 13 Dec, 20.45 CET: SV
Zulte Waregem - Ajax
"Out of all the opponents I know Espanyol the best," was Henk
ten Cate's first reaction. "The four Spanish sides in the UEFA
Cup are all very strong. They're well organized and in my
opinion Espanyol are the strongest of the four. But it could
have been worse. Look at
groups B and D, for example, or group H: Newcastle United,
Fenerbahce, Palermo and Eintracht Frankfurt. That one would not
have made me happy. This draw isn't bad, but we still have to
do the job."
Another
good thing about Ajax's opponents in group F? No long
trips to former Soviet republics, or Turkey,
Greece or Israel. Ten Cate: "A flight to Prague will only
take an hour or so. Barcelona is two hours. Vienna just
over one hour. And Belgium is just down the road."
Another
interesting detail: Ajax have the first matchday off, which
means that the Amsterdammers won't have a European away game
just before Feyenoord vs Ajax (Sunday 22 October). For Ajax's
Rotterdam arch-rivals a road game at Switzerland's FC Basel is
on the agenda for 19 October.
THE OPPOSITION
FK AUSTRIA WIEN was founded on 12 March 1911 as
the Wiener Amateur Sportvereinigung. The club name was
changed into Fussballklub Austria in 1926, for the
simple reason that the 'amateurs' had become professionals, 28
years before the first Dutch football clubs started paying
their players. FK Austria play their home game in purple (hence
their nickname: 'the Violets') and are one of Austria's most
succesful clubs: the trophy cabinet is stuffed with 23 Austrian
championship shields, 25 Austrian cups and 6 Austrian super
cups. Last season was particularly succesful: FK Austria won
the Austrian 'double'.
Like
many other Austrian football clubs, FK Austria add the name of
their main sponsor to their official club name: from 1977 to
1999 the club's official name was FK Austria Memphis and since
1999 it is is FK Austria Magna. Today, the club has a Dutch
coach (Frenk Schinkels), whereas their roster
includes a Dutch goalkeeper (Jelle ten Rouwelaar), a Dutch
defender (Delano Hill) and a Polish midfielder who spent many
years at SC Heerenveen (Arek Radomski).
For
more information on FK Austria's
history,
roster or results in the
current season, you can visit the interesting
English section of their official
website.
Did
Ajax ever play Austria Wien before...? Painful question.
The last time FK Austria visited Amsterdam (on 27 September
1989, in the first round of the UEFA Cup) their
goalkeeper, Roland Wohlfahrt, was hit by an iron bar,
thrown from section F of Ajax's old home ground of De
Meer. UEFA handed the Amsterdammers an administrative
defeat of 0-3, a considerable fine and a one year ban from
all UEFA competitions. The first three home games after that
ban had to be played at a venue at least 100 kilometres
away from Amsterdam. Never in modern Ajax history was the club
so close to bankruptcy.
The
last time Ajax faced Austrian opposition in UEFA
competition was in August 2003, when Grazer AK came out of the
bowl for the decisive qualifying round for the Champions
League. Both in Graz and in Amsterdam the score after 90
minutes was 1-1, after which Ajax advanced to the group
stage on a
'golden' Tomás Galásek penalty in extra
time. This season, FC Austria Wien made it to the group stage
of the UEFA by eliminating Poland's Legia Warsaw in the first
round: 1-1 in Poland, 1-0 at Horr Stadium in Vienna.
FK Austria's home ground holds some 11,800 spectators, but Ajax
won't get to see it, as FK Austria will only come
to the Amsterdam ArenA, on Thursday 02
November.
Ajax's most recent
(and only) encounters with AC SPARTA PRAHA in UEFA competition were
played very recently indeed, namely in September and November
of last year, in the group stage of the Champions League. Ajax
had to settle for a
1-1 draw at Prague's Toyota Arena, a result that
was unfortunate and fortunate at the same time:
unfortunate because Ajax were the far superior team
for 90 minutes, but also fortunate, as Wesley
Sneijder wiped out the Czechs' undeserved 1-0 lead in
stoppage time. On 22 November, at the Amsterdam ArenA, Sparta -
in their turn - also scored in stoppage time, but it was a goal
that didn't hurt the Dutch:
2-1 Ajax, who advanced to the knock-out
stages.
Sparta,
who play their home games at the Toyota Arena (18,800
spectators) in their famous wine-red jerseys, are the by
far biggest and most succesful football club of the Czech
Republic. Founded on
16 November 1893 as the Athletic Club
Sparta, the
club clinched 33 domestic league titles in
total: 24 in the former state of Czechoslovakia, 9 in
the modern Czech Republic. The Czech cup was won 24 times.
Sparta never won any of the UEFA trophies we know today, but
was very succesful when the old Central European Cup still
existed (a sort of Central-European Champions League avant
la lettre): it was won in 1927, 1935 and
1964.
It will be the third time for defender Zdenek Grygera to
play his former club as an Ajacied. Grygera had 65 league
appearances (2 goals) for Sparta between 2000 and 2003, before
he moved to Amsterdam. The best known players on the current
Sparta roster are probably defenders Kadlec and Repka,
midfielder Sivok and Swiss forward Mauro Lustrinelli, who
played against Sparta Prague and Ajax last season (he
actually
scored against Ajax, too) on behalf of FC Thun.
Apparently he made such a good impression in those games that
Sparta Prague decided to snap him up.
The official AC Sparta Praha website has a very good English section, with
plenty of information about the club's history,
roster and current
season. Sparta qualified for the group stage by eliminating
Heart Of Midlothian from Scotland in the first round: after an
excellent 0-2 win in Edinburgh, 0-0 was enough at Prague's
Toyota Arena, the stadium that Ajax will visit (again) on
Thursday 23 November.
Ajax boss Henk
ten Cate was hoping for a match against RCD ESPANYOL, the second club from the
magnificent city of Barcelona, and it is a safe bet that former
Barça boys Gabri and Roger will also look forward to the
encounter with the club from their proud home province of
Catalonia, on Thursday 30 November at the Amsterdam ArenA.
Roger even played for Espanyol for no less than four seasons:
the Ajacied had 114 league appearances, scored 17 goals
and won the Spanish cup with them.
It will be a match between contemporaries: both Ajax
and Espanyol are 106 years old. Founded as the
Sociedad Española de Football by university
students in 1900, King Alfonso XIII bestowed the 'royal' title
upon the club from Barcelona, who then officially changed their
name into Reial Club Deportivo Espanyol, a Catalonian
name which they were forced to 'translate' into Castilian
Spanish during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco: Real
Club Deportivo Español. The difference between
Real and
Reial, or Español and
Espanyol, means the world to the people of Catalonia.
Tiny linguistic differences; major political symbols.
The club play their home games in a jersey with wide,
vertical blue and white stripes and blue shorts. They never won
the Spanish championship, but added their third Spanish cup
(the Copa del Rey) to the trophy cabinet earlier this
year, after a triumph over Real Zaragoza in the final. It is
standing next to the Spanish cups of 1940 and 2000.
Espanyol's finest hour in UEFA competition was in 1988, when
the club lost the UEFA Cup final against Bayer Leverkusen on
penalties.
Today's Espanyol roster includes strikers Luis García
and Walter Pandiani, and midfielders Rufete and veteran Ivan de
la Peña. The club will soon move to a new stadium,
which is currently being built at the
location of old Sarrià Stadium, which the
club left in 1997. Since that year Espanyol play
their home games at Barcelona's Olympic Lluís Companys
Stadium, on Mount Montjuïc, overlooking the city.
Read more about the stadium, Espanyol history, the current
roster and the club's results in La Liga on RCD
Espanyol.com (the button for 'English' is at the
top of the homepage, on the right).
The dark horse in
group F is SV ZULTE WAREGEM,
Belgium's surprising cup winners of 2006 and one of
the youngest football clubs in the country's First Class.
'SVZW', referred to by many supporters as
Essevee, was born in 2001, when lower division
sides Zultse VV and KSV Waregem merged. The
latter club had just gone out of business. Waregem won the
Cup of Belgium in 1974 and made it to the semi-final of the
UEFA Cup in 1986. The new merger was initially called SV
Zulte-Waregem, but the dash disappeared from the club name in
2005. They play their home games in all white, but if you look
closely (collars, sleeves) you will see that the real club
colours are yellow, red and green.
SV Zulte Waregem play their domestic home games in Waregem's
Regenboog ('Rainbow') Stadium, which holds 8,500 spectators,
but since that ground does not meet the UEFA requirements SVZW
will welcome Ajax at Ghent's Otten Stadium, the
12,919-seater of KAA Ghent. The last time Ajax played that
ground, on 12 September 2000, they smashed
KAA Ghent 0-6 in the first round of the UEFA Cup, one
of the largest European away wins in recent history.
Ajax's most recent game against Belgian opposition in
UEFA competition, however, was a traumatic one. On
09 December 2003 they painfully crashed out
of Europe at the hands of Club Brugge (2-1).
The current roster of SV Zulte Waregem includes two
Belgian internationals who played for Willem II
in the Dutch Eredivisie, namely goalkeeper Geert De
Vlieger and midfielder Chris Janssens. Midfielder Nathan
D'Haemers also collected a few caps for Belgium. Striker Dragan
Mrdja from Serbia, one of the very few non-Belgian players of
Essevee, has not exactly set the Belgian
league alight so far this season, but the same can be said
of the whole team: Zulte Waregem are
currently 15th in the First Class, although the season has only
just started. It makes their achievement in the first round of
the UEFA Cup even more remarkable. SV Zulte Waregem lost the
away game at Lokomotiv Moscow by the score of 2-1, but caused a
major upset in the return leg: 2-0.
The official Zulte Waregem website does not
have an English language version. You might want to read the
club profile on Wikipedia,
although it is a bit out of date: club name (the
dash!), club crest and kit colours are now
different.
Finally...
It
is remarkable that Ajax are the only side in group
F to do well in their domestic league: the
Amsterdammers are at the top of the Eredivisie table since last
Sunday's triumph in Utrecht. All four of Ajax's opponents,
however, have had a disappointing start of the season.
Sparta Prague are currently third in the Czech league. Not
terrible (at least they're close to the top),
but the 'Ajax of the Czech Republic' can never
be satisfied with it. Sparta won only four out of their
first eight league games. Espanyol are five games underway
in La Liga, but the full three points were grabbed only
once. The team scored only two goals in five
games and are currently Spain's modest number 15 (in a league
of 20). Zulte Waregem are also 15th, but in a
league of 18. Only two out of the first eight games were
won. Austria Vienna, finally, perform way under
par as well: there are only ten teams in the Austrian
Bundesliga, and FK Austria are currently 8th. The
first eleven league games brought them only two wins, an
unacceptable score for what is traditionally one of Austria's
greatest clubs. (MP)
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