This year, Ajax is on the hunt for rehabilitation in Europe's most important club competition. The Amsterdam team did not get through the first selection in the past two seasons. In advance, the matches against Sparta Prague seemed decisive for the passage, because Arsenal is on paper the strongest team in the group, while no miracles were expected from the insignificant FC Thun. After PSV's victory yesterday, Danny Blind also opted for a victory. To this end, he made no changes to the team that won 2-0 against Willem II last Saturday. Maduro replaced the injured Escudé at the back, while Rosenberg was preferred to Charisteas as attack leader.
In the far from filled Toyota Arena, Ajax started promisingly. The team quickly passed the ball around and managed to create a number of dangers in front of the Czech goalkeeper. Especially Sneijder – who played as an attacking midfielder – and Rosenberg made themselves felt. However, the Swede was unable to convert a number of good opportunities into goals. One missed opportunity was actually his fault, when he finally missed the ball just in front of goalkeeper Blazek. However, Rosenberg was often able to break away from his defenders. Pienaar was also close to the opening goal, after Blazek failed to grab a shot from Sneijder.
In the meantime, Prague was lurking on the counter, but Galásek and Lindenbergh in particular were strong in ball recovery, so that the Czechs did not get further than two chances in the first 45 minutes, from Zelenka and Slepicka. Even veteran Karel Poborsky could not make any progress and often lost the ball. After Ajax slowed down a bit around the half hour mark, it regained the initiative in the final minutes before the break, but again Rosenberg did not have his sights set. During the first half, Ajax had no less than 69% of the ball possession.
Also at the start of the second act it was one-way traffic towards the Czech goal. Finally Babel sought adventure and dribbled gracefully past Prague's defense. However, his shot flew high. Ajax's field play was excellent, but in the final phase the team was just not lucky. After sixty minutes it was the Dutch team that escaped, after Matusovic's shot hit the post via Vonk's fingertips. Moments later, Matusovic did score. The Ajax defense handled a short corner from Prague poorly and the ball came to substitute Matusovic, who made the net behind Vonk tremble from about twenty meters.
Naturally, the goal did not change the picture of the game. Prague now leaned back even further and also came out dangerous on a few occasions. However, Ajax did not panic and the score was almost 1-1 again, but the post stood in the way of Babel's goal. With the fresh forces Rosales and Charisteas, Blind tried to breathe new life into the somewhat dull attacking game. However, the team from Amsterdam did not get further than the long ball. Thanks to a fantastic goal from Sneijder it was still 1-1. The midfielder received the ball from Babel, took a few steps and shot the ball into the intersection. A deserved point for Ajax after a solid match.
Characteristic:
Sparta Prague – Ajax 1-1
66. Matusovic 1-0
90+1. Sneijder 1-1
Referee: Larsen (Den)
Yellow cards: Galásek (Ajax)
Setups:
Sparta Prague: Blazek; Pospech, Petras, Luke, Kadlec; Kisel, Sivok, Polácek ( 79. Dosek), Poborsky, Zelenka; Slepicka (49. Matusovic).
Ajax: Spark; Trabelsi, Maduro, Grygera, Emanuelson; Galásek ( 90+2. Heitinga), Sneijder, Lindenbergh; Pienaar ( 81. Rosales), Rosenberg ( 76. Charisteas), Babel.
