Ajax are no ordinary underdogs
Ajax reached the Champions League semifinals on Tuesday, beating a second European heavyweight in a row.
Ajax made it to their first Champions League semifinal since 1997 on Tuesday, beating Juventus 2-1 at the Allianz Stadium in Turin. The Dutch side — former European royalty that have had to settle for a role as the continent’s premiere talent factory over the past two decades — came into the tie as clear underdogs, just as they had in the round of 16 against Real Madrid.
There’s no question their players are good — Frenkie de Jong, Matthijs de Ligt, Donny van de Beek, David Neres, to name only a few, could all be household names in the next five years — but the sense was they were a little too raw to be considered a serious threat against the likes of Real and Juventus.
Even after their 4-1 win at the Bernabeu to send them through to the quarters, there were just enough mitigating circumstances to distract from their obvious quality. The biggest one, of course, was Los Blancos‘ own dysfunction. As good as Ajax looked, the collapse of the Real dynasty dominated most headlines following the match.
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It seemed hard to imagine Juventus could be undone in the same way. Not only is Max Allegri’s side far more defensively solid than Real, but they added Real’s best player, Cristiano Ronaldo, over the summer. Given the Italian side were also coming off an impressive comeback from two goals down in their round of 16 tie with Atletico Madrid, they looked like clear favorites.
Ajax didn’t just beat Juve; they were comfortably the better side over the two legs, playing the more expansive soccer, dominating the ball, creating more chances. But for one defensive lapse in each leg — de Jong in the first, de Ligt in the second — they even looked like the more experienced side for long stretches.
Barring an unlikely comeback by Porto against Liverpool, Ajax will be presented as the fairytale team in the semifinals, plucky underdogs riding the wave of their own club’s rich history to make a run at the big time before all their best players are sold off. This might be a fairytale run, a nice reminder of Ajax’s place in the history of the game, but these are no ordinary underdogs.