As if Ajax weren't ballsy enough, they've bought on young central midfielder Jurgen Ekkelenkamp for Lasse Schone, which will be Ekkelenkamp's sixth appearance of his career in which he's played 60 minutes of football This in a CL quarter final against Juventus
Juve probably thought they stole it when scoring from their only shot on target of the whole game on the stroke of half time...then Ajax scored almost as soon as the second half began and were raining shots for the rest of the second half On the subject of shots on target, here's how many Man Utd had against Barca: 0
United v Barca - absolutely awful game of football - Never seen Barca play that badly before so different to how they played at Wembley! 4 defeats in 5 since Ole got the job permantly - fortunately he has the spammers on Saturday. Had to laugh at Young moaning constantly about time wasting - anyone who saw last seasons FA cup semi will love the irony!
Even he looked like he didn't have the pace to run beyond United's defenders. Ousmane Dembele would have made a big difference to that performance.
I wouldn't fear either of these two teams if I was a fan of the other six teams left. An SAF team with a bit more energy and effort and a lot more quality would have battered that Barca team.
Barca seemed to be playing within themselves, though. They weren't very good, but Utd failed to create anything. Got the early goal and then dawdled their way through the game.
I like that optimism, but I'm not sure there's really any comparison. Barca aren't world beaters, but they are experienced and savvy enough and have enough quality to see off Utd. The only threat they need to cope with is Utd's pace on the counter. Utd failed to show any threat tonight. I'm realistic. Q-F is a reasonable performance especially given the draw.