No Onana, no Tadic, no Klaassen, no Gravenberch. After PSV, AZ and NAC, Ajax has unequivocally been hit by an outbreak of the corona virus within the selection, with consequences for the crucial match in the Champions League against Midtjylland on Tuesday.
The keepers’ arsenal and compact midfield have been hit hardest. Not only goalkeeper André Onana is missing, reserve Maarten Stekelenburg also stayed in Amsterdam. Ajax only took one goalkeeper to Denmark: Kjell Scherpen. “If I have to, I will go for goal,” said defender Perr Schuurs with a laugh.
Later in the evening Ajax reported that another goalkeeper will travel to Denmark anyway, with a number of retested football players. The club hopes that they can still take action on Tuesday. Although Ajax, unlike PSV, for example, does not make any statements about why there are no individual players, for reasons of privacy, it was not difficult to deduce a few things from the selection. Corona strikes unambiguously. Interpretation of corona too.
Corona makes the season a tombola anyway, with the cooperation of the clubs and unions. They want to play football and accept that everything is going differently than normal. It is the ambition of Ajax, of trainer and management, to make Ajax ‘Champions League proof’. Keeping Ajax high quality, even when the best players leave, in order to keep participating in the top competition. But no club is resistant to corona, as it appears every time. “Some players are allowed to play football in the Netherlands, but not in Denmark,” Ten Hag was surprised. “But the authorities decide. Any team can get the coronavirus. “And, quite ambiguously:” We have to deal with this positively. ”
It’s Monday, a rainy evening in Herning, in the center of Jutland. Defender Perr Schuurs and trainer Erik ten Hag will join the press conference in the MCH Stadium. The news has preceded them. It is almost exclusively about corona. They answer as far as they can and want. Before leaving for Denmark, Ajax is told that the authorities do not agree with a number of submitted tests. Many players who were allowed to participate against Fortuna Sittard last weekend have now been excluded from the Champions League. Denmark has a stricter policy than the Netherlands.
According to federal doctor Edwin Goedhart of the KNVB, this is almost certainly the so-called residual value of virus in the body, say the remainder of an infection that can date from months ago. Ten Hag also states that it has to do with this. “It is probably old material,” said Goedhart. “In fact, it is theoretically possible that the large number of infections was caused by a malfunction in the laboratory.”
Ten Hag is calm, he states that Ajax still has a nice, good selection, that Midtjylland is a tough team that has turned set pieces into “a niche”. That in this strange time Ajax does not rotate with players for nothing, to keep the largest possible group fit. He only criticizes the lack of equality in rules, even within the European Union. With some annoyance in the voice, “You would expect those rules to be the same everywhere. It is also a political discussion, with many different measures in different countries. But it cannot be that all those rules differ within one competition. That is competition distortion. “And also:” The preparation is not ideal, but we have to deal with it. ”
Until now Ajax kept to the plain, even when suddenly players were missing. Ryan Gravenberch, Antony, Klaas Jan Huntelaar, someone was always absent for once. Last weekend, assistant trainer Winston Bogarde was missing, who has also stayed home now. In each case no cause has been mentioned, because of privacy. Ajax is of the opinion that too little is known about the possible consequences of the virus on a person to be open about individual cases. Ten Hag: “We want to protect the players.”
But on Monday there is no stopping it, although the announcement on the website is completely dry: that Ajax will fly to Denmark with seventeen men. Which of the permanent staff are missing: two goalkeepers, three actually, because Dominik Kotarski also stays at home. And the entire midfield from last week in Bergamo, Gravenberch, Tadic and Klaassen. Previously, PSV and AZ were badly hit, with AZ still “lucky” that only Boadu was missing from the starting team.
UEFA states that the match will continue if a club can mobilize at least thirteen players, including a goalkeeper. There is a chance that some of the missing players will still join on Tuesday. Ajax is having new tests carried out and hopes for results that are acceptable to everyone. “We will have to be unperturbed,” said Ten Hag.
