Josip Sutalo is available again. The defender has recovered from a flu that kept him sidelined in the last matches against Almere City and Telstar. Trainer Farioli expects a difficult match for Ajax. “Sparta is a team that can make it very difficult for us physically,” he looked ahead to the thirtieth match of this season for his team.
Sparta has been led again for a month and a half by Maurice Steijn, the coach who was fired from Ajax last year. “He did not have the best time of his career at Ajax,” said Farioli. “But I have said before that I think the poor results of last season were not the fault of Ajax’s coaches. The problems were much deeper.”
Ajax is second in the Premier League. “That’s a ranking that a lot of people didn’t expect,” Farioli said. “We will do everything we can to enter the winter break in second place. We will then start training again for the second half of the season on January 2.”