Steven Berghuis believes that playing football in the interim round of the Conference League suits Ajax’s current situation. “I don’t even want to talk about the Champions League,” the attacker looked ahead to Thursday’s home match against Bodø/Glimt in Europe’s third level. “That wouldn’t be appropriate. Let’s be humble.”
The departed general manager Edwin van der Sar was clear a few years ago when he was asked what he would do if Ajax had to play in the Conference League. “Then I’m gone,” said the former goalkeeper, who could not have imagined that the 2019 Champions League semi-finalist would descend like this in a few seasons.
Berghuis also left Feyenoord for Ajax because he could play there in the Champions League, “But I don’t want to talk about winning the Conference League now,” he said. “Let’s look from match to match. Bodø/Glimt has achieved good results in Europe in recent years.”
The Norwegian club is successful under Kjetil Knutsen, the Norwegian trainer who was in the picture last season as John Heitinga’s successor at Ajax. The club has won the national title three times in the past four years and surprised clubs such as AZ, Celtic and Besiktas in the Conference League. The highlight were the two victories in front of their own audience over AS Roma (6-1, 2-1), Feyenoord’s upcoming opponent in the Europa League.
Deflate Bodø/Glimt
The advantage for Ajax may be that the Norwegian competition is on hold until April. In recent weeks, Bodø/Glimt prepared for the double confrontation with Ajax with practice matches and said goodbye to dangerous attackers such as Faris Moumbagna (Olympique Marseille) and Amahl Pellegrino (San Jose Earthquakes).
Ajax continues to defend only moderately. The club compensated for this for a long time by scoring more often than the opponent. But things went wrong on Sunday against Heerenveen (3-2). “We climbed from eighteenth to fifth place in the Eredivisie,” said coach John van ‘t Schip. “But that didn’t happen automatically. I think we are still making progress, but on Sunday we took a big step back. Hopefully we have learned from that. If this young group is not fully concentrated, we will run into problems.”
Sickbay
Van ‘t Schip can again call on Devyne Rensch, who will probably start as left back. Branco van den Boomen returns to the selection as a substitute after knee surgery. Ahmetcan Kaplan and Julian Rijkhoff also take place on the bench at Ajax, where Berghuis takes over the captaincy again from the injured Steven Bergwijn.