Ajax wins in Heerenveen after a flashy start and puts pressure on Feyenoord | Dutch football

Heitinga made one change to his starting team. Kenneth Taylor replaced Davy Klaassen in midfield, with the coach choosing the same team as in the home game against Union Berlin. That was perhaps the weakest game under the leadership of Heitinga, who saw Ajax, mainly due to a lack of depth and creativity, do nothing against the Germans.

How different was it against Heerenveen, when Ajax had already secured the victory within twenty minutes with three hits and thus kept course for the goal of knocking Feyenoord off the lead next week in a mutual clash before the international break.

After ten minutes, Mohammed Kudus opened the scoring when he curled the ball past goalkeeper Xavier Mous into the far corner after an attack through the middle. With his eleventh goal, the Ghanaian not only entered the top scorers list alongside Brian Brobbey, but also helped Ajax match a series of accurate away games (25) from 1969.

Former Ajax player Mous was able to fish the ball from the same corner five minutes later, where Edson Álvarez left him without a chance with a Sunday shot. That icing was nice, but the third Ajax goal was even better. Steven Bergwijn slipped through the Heerenveen defense after a nice combination with Dusan Tadic, after which he also left Mous without a chance. For Bergwijn it meant his first premier league goal this calendar year, while captain Tadic lifted his number of assists to sixteen.

That Bergwijn is getting back up at Ajax in the run-up to the Classic, he proved once again after half an hour of play, when he soloed past a handful of Frisians and only for Mous to hit the post with a diagonal shot. The weak defense was reason for Kees van Wonderen to intervene hard. Shortly after Osame Sahraoui committed a foul on Devyne Rensch, who had appeared free for Mous, and referee Jeroen Manschot reversed his awarded penalty to a free kick, the Heerenveen coach applied no less than three substitutions.

One of those substitutes, Thom Haye, helped ease the tension a bit more by swinging the ball towards the far post. There, Pelle van Amersfoort was able to head the 1-3 into an empty goal, also due to an error of judgment by Ajax closing post Gerónimo Rulli. As a result, Heerenveen started the second half with a hint of hope.

The hint of hope that the audience in the Abe Lenstra stadium got for the second half, evaporated after just over five minutes. And this time Mous was allowed to take the Ajax goal into account because he misjudged a shot with Taylor’s chocolate leg in the short corner (1-4).

However, Ajax was again unable to maintain or expand the margin of three. Even when Manschot reversed a penalty again after the interruption of the VAR. With that, Álvarez in particular escaped, who first handed in the ball and then made a dangerous tackle on Sahraoui. Brobbey, who replaced star Bergwijn, then hit the crossbar with a header.

Little was left of the fresh and frivolous attacking game at Ajax after the break. Heerenveen insisted more, also because the visitors were less likely to slam the back door. And after Van Amersfoort, Sydney van Hooijdonk, who had recovered from an injury, who started somewhat surprisingly on the bench, was also able to expose Ajax’s other shortcoming. This time the Argentinian Rulli misjudged a cross from Sahraoui, as a result of which Sydney van Hooijdonk saw the ball bounce into the empty goal and Ajax already conceded the fourteenth header of the season.

It did not prevent the team from Amsterdam from finding Feyenoord, which will play against Volendam tonight, in the ranking. Next week, the national champion hopes to continue the series of seven consecutive victories against the arch-rival in a mutual cracker to take title prolongation completely into their own hands.