Ajax is a class better than Rangers FC in almost everything. Last summer it became clear in financial terms, when the Dutch champion Calvin Bassey bought away from the number two in Scotland for 23 million euros as a replacement for Lisandro Martínez. With Bassey in the base, Ajax was supreme in sporting terms against Rangers FC on Wednesday. The Amsterdam club started with a convincing victory (4-0) in Group A of the Champions League. Edson Álvarez, Steven Berghuis, Mohammed Kudus and Steven Bergwijn scored the goals. It was closed in the back. “They get football lessons”, the supporters of Ajax sang teasingly to the team and the supporters from Glasgow.
Ajax showed that it belongs to a different category than Rangers FC. The number one in the Netherlands has the ambition to progress in a group with Liverpool and Napoli, while qualification for the main tournament at the expense of PSV was already a top prize for the Scottish club. It became clear to Ajax that participating for the team of trainer Giovanni van Bronckhorst is more important than winning.
Rangers FC is a club from an even smaller league than the Eredivisie, whose best players in Ajax now see an intermediate step to the absolute top of Europe. Ajax – which sold 216 million euros to players and brought in new players for 105 million euros – was a much bigger party in the transfer market than Rangers FC, which saw 31 million euros come in and 14 million euros out.
False start
The transfer of Bassey from Glasgow to Amsterdam made Rangers FC weaker and Ajax immediately better. Within a few weeks, the Nigerian international is already an undisputed basic player in Alfred Schreuder’s team. The 22-year-old defender had a false start in the battle for the Johan Cruijff Scale against PSV. Bassey was only on the field for fourteen minutes on his debut for Ajax, as a substitute for Owen Wijndal, when he was shown red after a hard foul on PSV player Ismael Saibari. On the night itself, Bassey was momentarily upset, but he quickly got over it. Bassey has faced bigger problems.
After a suspension of two games, Bassey managed to conquer a permanent place. And when his competitor Perr Schuurs also left for the Italian Torino, Bassey also took over his jersey number 3. He did apologize to fans of Ajax, who had already purchased a shirt with Bassey and number 33. Bassey, together with Jurriën Timber against Sparta, FC Utrecht and Cambuur, formed the new central defense duo of Ajax. They kept clean three times in a row in the competition. And on Wednesday evening in the Champions League again.
Bassey faced his former employer on his Champions League debut. The team that Bassey visited two weeks ago when the Rangers came to force qualification for the Champions League in Eindhoven. Bassey wholeheartedly awarded it to his former teammates.
On Wednesday in the Johan Cruijff Arena he turned a switch and in his eyes it was a sporty fight that had to be won. With his 1.85 meters height, his speed and his strength, he is the modern defender that Ajax was looking for. Bassey turned out to be an important link at the back of Ajax, which gave away almost no chance. Rangers only scored in the second half via Borna Barisic, but after a VAR intervention, the goal was disallowed for offside.
Mother’s name
Although Bassey was still an almost completely blank page in the top of European football, Ajax dared to make him one of the most expensive purchases. Bassey is a special mix of a player with Nigerian blood who learned football on pitches in Italy and England. The defender was born on December 31, 1999 as Calvin Ughelumba in Aosta, Italy, as the son of two Nigerian migrants. When his parents later divorced, he took his mother’s surname Ebere Bassey.
As a teenager he went to England with the help of her mother in search of a better life. However, Bassey had only one goal in mind in East London: to become a professional footballer. In London’s underprivileged Newham neighborhood, Bassey learned to survive on the streets as a footballer, while others turned to drugs. Football kept Bassey on the straight and narrow. Leicester City offered him the chance to make his dream come true in September 2015. As a youth player, he saw his club become the surprising champion of the Premier League that season. And entered the Champions League.
Bassey was unable to make the first step at Leicester City in five years. He left for Rangers FC as a talented left wing defender. Initially, he made no special impression under trainer Steven Gerrard. But after the arrival of Giovanni van Bronckhorst to Glasgow, the perspective for Bassey changed. The Dutch coach saw a central defender in him. He grew into a revelation at the heart of the defense. Bassey played in the final of the Europa League with a strong performance against Eintracht Frankfurt in the international spotlight. Ajax brought ‘the colossus’ to Amsterdam.
With Ajax, Bassey could look back on a good start of the Champions League. The defender received confirmation that he has taken a step forward with his new employer. As a thank you for his time in Glasgow, Bassey applauded the fans of the Rangers FC afterwards, before celebrating the victory with the Amsterdam supporters.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of September 8, 2022