269 Battle for the top of the list [Outbreak of the sixteenth watch, begging for a monthly pass]
March 10, at the Morois Stadium in Lille, France.
The first leg of the UEFA Cup round of 16 knockout round.
Ajax travels to Ligue 1 Lille.
The Ligue 1 powerhouse currently sit third in Ligue 1 behind Lyon and Marseille and higher than Monaco and Auxerre.
Defending is the capital of Lille's outstanding performance in Ligue 1, but the offensive ability is weak, so that Lille has won only 12 games in the 28 rounds of Ligue 1, even less than Auxerre in fifth place.
The defense is strong and the attack is weak, which is also the biggest problem for Lille this season.
As a result, Lille's home results are not ideal, after all, the home team tends to face more cautious and even conservative away teams, and it is difficult to win the three points without excellent attacking power.
It's like Ajax that Lille faced tonight.
Ronald Koeman, despite the overall strength, still discharged the double midfield combination of Galasek and De Jong, in order to consolidate the defense in the central midfield.
Lille also maintained a high degree of vigilance against Yang Yang, a new player in the Eredivisie this season, and deployed heavy troops to restrain him, which made it difficult for Yang Yang to get chances throughout the first half.
But in the stoppage time of the first half, when everyone thought that the game would end 0-0, Yang Yang suddenly made a force.
Sneijder crossed over the top and sent the ball into the box with precision.
Yang Yang shook off the defender, cut diagonally into the penalty area from the right rib at the fastest speed, grabbed before the attacking Lille goalkeeper, and shot directly with a cushion, and the ball crossed the goalkeeper's side and crashed into the goal behind him.
Yang Yang was knocked to the ground by the attacking goalkeeper, and after rolling around, when he knelt up, he just saw the football beating in the goal line, and raised his hands high to celebrate his other goal.
In the end, Ajax won 1-0 away against Lille with Yang Yang's goal in the 45th minute.
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At the weekend, we returned to the Eredivisie for the twenty-fifth round.
Ajax take on Nijmegen away.
From February onwards, the continuous multi-front campaign finally came to a head at this time, especially in the recent back-to-back away games, the players were very tired, and Nijmegen's strict defence made Ajax's performance in the game very sluggish.
Yang Yang is in good shape, still working very hard, although his teammates are not in good shape, but Yang Yang still relies on his personal ability to create several good scoring opportunities in the game.
Especially in the 51st minute, Yang Yang broke through the inside cut with the ball on the right side and crossed to the front of the penalty area.
Maduro, who started in place of Galasek in this game, stepped in and fired a straight shot to score the winning goal for Ajax.
In the end, with Yang Yang's goal of assisting Maduro, Ajax narrowly defeated Nijmegen 1-0 away.
After the game, Yang Yang became the only player who was not blamed among the Ajax attacking players, not only that, but the media and fans still gave Yang Yang a high evaluation of his performance, believing that he was the only bright spot for Ajax.
Yang Yang has no regrets about failing to score, but football matches are like this.
Fortunately, Feyenoord beat Roda JC 4-1 at home in this round, but Kuyt also failed to score.
The number of goals scored by both sides is still 20 to 22, and Yang Yang continues to fall behind by two goals.
PSV Eindhoven beat The Hague 4-0 at home in this round, and AZ Alkmaar won 3-2 at home to Graafschap, and the top four of the league remained unchanged.
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Three days later, the second leg of the UEFA Cup round of 16 knockout round.
Ajax host Lille.
Feeling the ups and downs of the team's recent form, especially among the several offensive players in the team, except for Yang Yang, the other players are in relatively average condition, Ronald Koeman has made a large rotation, and even intends to give up this game and focus on playing the league.
There is really no way, Ajax's personnel reserves are simply not enough to support the team's continuous multi-line operations, and young players such as Babel and Maduro do not have the level to be in charge for the time being, and the coaching staff can only make trade-offs.
Although the UEFA Cup is a European competition, the returns are very low, and the input is not proportional to the output.
In contrast, doing everything possible to keep the league and qualify for next season's Champions League can bring Ajax huge benefits, at least more than 10 million euros, which is impossible to give even if the UEFA Cup is won.
This is also the reason why all the big teams are basically reluctant to play in the UEFA Cup.
Moreover, in the 26th round of the Eredivisie, Ajax will host PSV Eindhoven, which is another key battle to determine the ownership of the league title, which Ronald Koeman does not pay attention to.
Ajax's performance was affected by the heavy rotation, but Lille was never able to break down Ajax's defence.
In the end, the two sides played to a 0-0 draw at the Amsterdam Arena.
Ajax narrowly beat Lille 1-0 on aggregate with a 1-0 away win and entered the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup.
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March 19, Amsterdam Arena.
In the 26th round of the Eredivisie, Ajax hosted PSV Eindhoven.
By the 57th minute, the game was still tied at 0-0.
But at this time, PSV Eindhoven suddenly made a rather surprising substitution.
Guus Hiddink replaced captain Marc van Bommel with Worger.
Yang Yang was also surprised when he saw this substitution, because Van Bommel is one of the most dominant players on the field at PSV Eindhoven, and Hiddink replaced him at this time and replaced him with Voger, is this to strengthen the attack?
This is not surprising as PSV Eindhoven had already made a substitution before Van Bommel to bring on Farfan with Gerard Sibon, a high-school striker who is 1.96m tall.
After Sibon came on the pitch, he and Hesselinck formed the two giant towers in the front of PSV Eindhoven, and it was somewhat wasteful to continue to pile up two players in the midfield, Koku and Van Bommel.
Moreover, there were rumours before the game that Van Bommel was injured, and it is also possible that Hiddink was trying to protect him.
But either way, Van Bommel is off, Volger is on, PSV Eindhoven has brought a very clear attacking signal.
With the first half 0-0, Hiddink wanted to end the battle in the second half, and wanted to use this game to completely lose the suspense of the title of the Eredivisie this season.
After the substitution, PSV Eindhoven began to press aggressively, giving full play to the threat of the two towers in front of the center and actively playing on two wings.
Ajax's overall strength is inferior to PSV Eindhoven, and they continue to play steadily and adopt defensive counter-attacking tactics.
Without Van Bommel, PSV Eindhoven began to press back on the attack, and Yang Yang gained more freedom up front.
Just five minutes from Van Bommel's departure, Ajax had a chance to counter-attack.
Center forward Charlisteas pulled out of the penalty area, retreated to receive a pass from the midfield, and after receiving the ball, it passed to the right rib.
Yang Yang took the ball and faced Li Rongpyo one-on-one.
Although the South Korean left full-back has been mentally prepared, he is also extremely cautious when facing Yang Yang, and he does not dare to be careless.
But before Yang Yang started, there was a very secret little action, which attracted Li Rongpyo's attention, and then suddenly started, the speed was very fast, Li Rongpyo felt like a figure in front of him, and Yang Yang had already jumped past him with the ball.
When he turned to chase back, Yang Yang had already rushed into the penalty area and hit the goal directly with his right foot.
The ball is in!!!
The entire Amsterdam Arena was cheering and shouting Yang Yang!
Li Rongbi shook his head helplessly, in the past two seasons, almost every time he faced Yang Yang, he felt a nightmare.
The speed of this Chinese is too fast! The body is so flexible!
And he has a lot of feints, as long as he is a little careless and a little distracted, he may seize the opportunity to form a breakthrough.
1-0, Ajax temporarily took the lead with Yang Yang's goal.
This is also Yang Yang's 21st goal this season!
After conceding the goal, PSV Eindhoven did not back down, but pressed forward more resolutely.
In fact, everyone in the Eredivisie knows that Ajax's biggest and biggest defensive weakness is the high ball.
This is determined by Ajax's tactics, and it is almost impossible to find two centre-backs who are excellent at defending the ball and at the same time have a strong ability to play the ball.
Ronald Koeman arranged for Vlaar to start this game and played well, freezing Heselink in the first half, but as a result, Hiddink replaced a more terrifying, nearly two-meter Sibon in the second half.
Just five minutes after Ajax's goal, PSV Eindhoven finally took their chance.
Lee Young-pyo made up for it when he stepped in on the left flank, and crossed into the box from the left, and Sibon beat Heitinga's header to equalize the score for PSV Eindhoven.
The Korean players also showed full resilience, and did not affect their emotions and performance because of Yang Yang's forced breakthrough just now, which made Yang Yang quite appreciative.
In terms of player strength, Park Ji-sung, Lee Young-pyo, and even Feyenoord's Shinji Ono are indeed slightly better than Chinese players, which Yang Yang must admit the gap.
Just two minutes later, Ajax hit the back again.
After McConn's long pass on the right side, Yang Yang threw off Li Rongpyo as quickly as possible, and when he received the ball behind Eindhoven, he had already rushed to the right side of the penalty area, and after taking a look at the penalty area, Yang Yang grabbed before Li Rongpyo fell into position, and crossed the ball with a low flat ball, sending the ball directly to the back point.
Ryan Babel, who had just started as a substitute for Pienaar, quickly followed up and scored with ease at the back post to put the score ahead again.
Two to one!
The Ajax fans at the Amsterdam Arena are on a rollercoaster ride and are in a mood of ups and downs.
The overall strength of PSV Eindhoven this season is indeed too strong, and Ajax is indeed struggling to deal with it.
Especially at the back, whether it is Vermaelen or Vlaar, although they have performed very well, they still need to work harder to replace Zivu and Escude.
And Wesley Sonk, the Golden Boot of the League A who was expected by everyone before the season, has now been beaten into the cold by Ronald Koeman, preferring to use Ryan Babel rather than let him come on as a substitute, and he is basically sure to leave the team after the season.
Yang Yang also felt very embarrassed about this, after all, he and Wesley Sonk once won the Champions League side by side.
In the 86th minute of the second half, PSV Eindhoven were awarded a corner kick and Sibon's header was deflected wide and Heselink scored from the back post to equalise for PSV Eindhoven.
In the end, the battle for the top spot of the Eredivisie ended in a 2-2 draw.
The championship suspense continues.