The Ajax football players drew 1-1 in the difficult away match against Bayern Munich in the Champions League. A stunt was not possible in Bavaria, but the team of coach Suzanne Bakker kept the leader of the German competition under control. Lea Schüller scored for the home team, Chasity Grant scored the Amsterdam goal.
It was the third group match for Ajax. After the 2-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain and the 3-0 defeat against AS Roma, Ajax has now reached 4 points with the point achieved against Bayern. For the time being, that is good for third place in the group. Bayern is still the leader with 5 points. Later on Thursday, AS Roma and PSG will play against each other.
Quickly behind
After just 2 minutes Ajax was behind. Goalkeeper Regina van Eijk managed to clear Linda Dallmann’s bet, but Schüller was able to easily tap the ball in on the rebound. That quick goal was the start of a German attack wave, with great opportunities for Dallmann and Schüller, but Ajax held on.
The team from Amsterdam gradually managed to outpace the German pressure, but Bayern remained significantly more dangerous and after half an hour the Bavarian crowd cheered for the second goal. However, the linesman raised the flag for offside, so Dallmann’s goal did not count.
Equalizer
The equalizer came quite unexpectedly after 38 minutes. Lily Yohannes delivered a long cross to Chasity Grant, who turned free and fired the ball past German goalkeeper Maria Luisa Grohs.
After the break, Ajax was better in the match. Yohannes soon had a chance, but she headed the ball over. The team finally showed some of the bravado that coach Bakker so wanted to see and managed to become more and more dangerous as they combined. The Amsterdam team did not get any real big chances, while Bayern came close to scoring several times on the counterattack. For example, Van Eijk managed to tap a hard shot from Schüller against the crossbar and she also responded alertly to a shot from Sydney Lohmann.