Match Thread: Johan Cruijff Schaal, Ajax Amsterdam - PSV Eindhoven

The Dutch Eredivisie is about to start and traditionally, one week before the season commences the battle for the Johan Cruijff Schaal makes sure it starts with a bang. In this event the winner of last years championship(Ajax) will play against the winner of the league cup(PSV) which is called the KNVB trophy. In honour of Johan Cruijff the match is always played in the stadium where Ajax Amsterdam resides, which is currently the Amsterdam Arena.

PSV - Ajax, 17:00 GMT, Amsterdam Arena​

Now let's get some background information on the teams. Ajax had a good second half of the season, setting a winning streak of 14 games to win the competition in the end. During the summer transfer periode they lost Jan Vertonghen to the Spurs for 7,5 million pounds. Aside from this transfer, Frank de Boer has managed to keep his championship team together, Aïssati contract was not continued due to high wages and Nicolas Lodeiro followed Clarence Seedorf to Botafogo, Brazil. In Ajax bought Danish midfielder Lasse Schöne and just a couple of days ago Swedish midfielder Sana. So with keeping 90% of his championship winning team, Ajax are certainly no pushover here.The team underwent a revolt, revolution, another revolt and another revolution just in the past twelve months. A coup staged by Johan Cruijff himself cleared the way for a new management system. Youth players would be leading in this system, not buying expensive players with very expensive contracts and wages. This to keep in line with the Financial Fair Play rules that the Dutch FA(KNVB) has already fully implemented in the Dutch competition.

PSV is on a completely different strategy than Ajax. The club was on the verge of going bust in 2011 but the city's council bought the property and stadium of the club from Eindhoven for a mere 48 million euros. Since then the club has invested silly money to forge a championship winning team:
Georgino Wijnaldum, 4.4 million euros, Tim Matavz, 6.2 million, Kevin Strootman, 3.9 million and Dries Mertens for 7.5 million. In total PSV spent 23 million euros, government money, on players last season. And they ended up in third place of the competition. Coach Rutten was sacked and Dick Advocaat was brought in. This summer they are on a spending spree again. Luciano Narsingh was bought for 3.6 million and goalie Tyton for 2.2 million (Yes, the goalie from the first match of the Euro2012 who had to save a penalty after Arsenal goalie Szczęsny was red-carded). With no departures and superstar Mark van Bommel joining the club on a free transfer from AC Milan, PSV are clear favorites here.

Now the stats: Aax and PSV have encountered eachother for 118 times in total. 48 times Ajax came out on top, 47 times it was PSV , 23 draws.

Last 5 encounters:
2009-2010 Eredivisie 14-03-2010 Ajax-PSV 4-1 (2-0)
2010-2011 Eredivisie 20-11-2010 Ajax-PSV 0-0 (0-0)
2010-2011 Eredivisie 27-02-2011 PSV-Ajax 0-0 (0-0)
2011-2012 Eredivisie 18-09-2011 PSV-Ajax 2-2 (1-1)
2011-2012 Eredivisie 25-03-2012 Ajax-PSV 2-0 (0-0)

Last 5 matches Ajax:

31-07-2012 Norwich City - AFC Ajax 1 - 1
28-07-2012 Southampton - AFC Ajax 0 - 1
21-07-2012 AFC Ajax - Celtic 4 - 0
14-07-2012 VV Noordwijk - AFC Ajax 0 - 8
11-07-2012 VV Veendam - AFC Ajax 1 - 5

Last 5 Matches PSV:

29-07-2012 Union Berlin - PSV 1-1
26-07-2012 PAOK Saloniki - PSV 0-2
22-07-2012 Benfica - PSV 1-3
21-07-2012 PSV - Athletic de Bilbao 1-0
15-07-2012 KRC Genk - PSV 0-2

Match line ups:

Ajax:

Vermeer

Van Rhijn - Alderweireld - Blind - Dijks

Anita - De Jong - Janssen

Özbiliz - Sigthórsson - Fischer​

Injured: Sulejmani, Boerrigter, Eriksen, Boilesen, Van der Wiel

PSV:

Mertens - Lens - Narsingh

Strootman - Toivonen - Van Bommel

Willems - Bouma - Marcelo - Hutchinson

Tyton​

Injuries: none


Both teams will play in the typical Dutch 4-3-3 attacking formation.

Links to livestream of the match:


http://www.wiziwig.tv/broadcast.php?matchid=165641&part=sports

http://livetv.ru/en/eventinfo/128518_psv_eindhoven_ajax/

http://www.rojadirecta.me/

http://www.thefirstrow.eu/watch/134064/1/watch-psv-vs-ajax.html

http://atdhenet.tv/48931/watch-psv-eindhoven-vs-ajax-amsterdam

 

Good one Cove, well done.

 

Took me an hour to write, it's a small piece with a wee bit of background, i will add livestream links to this thread around 4'ish this afternoon.

 

Could tell it would have taken you a while just to type it out.

 

Well played Cove

 

Got Rick rolled did ya?

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Nice one, my brother, sister-in-law and niece all live in Eindhoven so I know where my support will be going (even if they are the Man Citeh of their league)

 

On of my favourite actors ever. He was te best captain too.

 

Doesn't look like Joe Harvey to me.

 

Shall be watching with interest Cove! Shall take us nicely up to the 100m semi finals start-time as well!

 

Additional info:

Bjorn Kuiper is the referee, #1 ranked in the Dutch league. He was in charge of last seasons Champions League Quarter Final, AC Milan - FC Barcelona and he was active during the World Cup in South Africa and Euro2012. He was the referee that had to stop the match when the rain poor down during Ukraine - France.

Ajax has announced that the Amsterdam Arena is sold out. The stadiums capacity has been expanded to 52.000.
The stadium is also the venue for the Europa League final for this season.

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52,000, about the same size as SJP then Cove.

 

Standard capacity is 52960, there are plans for a small expansion to 55.000, large expansion to 65.000 and a third ring plan to expand it to 85.000.
The first one is likely, the second plan seems to be for the very long term but possible. The third option is impossible in my opinion. With the economical crisis and not being able to progress to the second round in the CL there are no funds nor fans to complete that plan.

 

Looks a nice enough stadium.

 

Update: Dick Advocaat leaves his Bulgarian Right Back in Eindhoven. Stanislav Manolev was part of the starting eleven squad last year under the reign of Rutten. During the summer he extended his contract for two years with the club. Advocaat seems to prefer Hutchinson on the RB position. Manolev was linked with AC Milan during the winter break of last season.

 

I love Amsterdam Arena. Great atmosphere with the Ajax fans too. Bob Marley this is a good write up Cove. Good read. Interested to see how good Strootman is as well as Anita.

 

To those unfamiliar: Ajax fans adopted Bob Marley's song 'Three little birds' as anthem. The song is played during half time just before the second half commences.

[video=youtube;LanCLS_hIo4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LanCLS_hIo4&feature=related[/video]

This is from Old Trafford earlier this year

[video=youtube;63BqrVTEQXs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63BqrVTEQXs&feature=related[/video]

 

Wow. Looks a great arena.

 

Cove... Just noticed you have passed 8000 rep points.. Well done....

http://www.not606.com/xperience.php?go=ranking&order=desc&sort=xr&pp=30

 

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