Jan Vertonghen’s career began at Ajax. He joined the youth ranks in 2003 and eventually made 155 first-team appearances. So he knows the club well and has told his Benfica colleagues how Ajax can be defeated.
“It feels good, although I’m not talking about the match picture. But we knew that was going to be the match picture,” the defender told RTL 7 after the match.
“Ajax had the ball and were much better in terms of football. We often gave the ball away. Maybe they didn’t have many final chances, but that was because we were too weak.”
“We didn’t want to give Ajax space. If we applied a lot of pressure and fell into their trap, Ajax would create many chances with their speed, individual actions and from midfield.”
“I said it 10 times in the dressing room. Play away from Ajax’s goal and try to delay that goal in goal. Then we had to score with a restart or a reaction. It wouldn’t work any other way.”
“This was the ideal scenario,” he concluded.
Roman Yarimchuk was also fantastic in his home country of Ukraine after the qualifiers. How does he deal with that? “It’s hard. I’m a professional. I have to fight here on the field.”
“My friends are fighting in Ukraine, my countrymen are fighting, I can only do my best here. I do what I can. I try to represent my country well here. But of course I think about that all the time.”
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