SUMMARY:
They said they couldn’t do it at the Bernabeu, and this time Juventus would be too tall an order, now, they couldn’t go all the way could they? Ajax seems to believe so and at this point, so do I. The game ended 1-1 in Amsterdam a week ago with many people feeling appreciative of the effort of the Ajax team, but ultimately feeling that Juventus and Ronaldo would be able to defeat them at home. This young Ajax team, however, does not play with an ounce of fear and showed up to Turin in their patented Dutch attacking 4-3-3 with every intent to display art in the form of football. The opening minutes of the match were very stop and start with neither team seeming to be able to establish themselves into a rhythm. Eventually, Juventus started to take some control of the match by pressing Ajax high up the pitch and playing them at their own game. This proved to be an effective tactic which suppressed Ajax’s quick attacks.
This tactic led to Juventus having a lot of possession in the first quarter of the match. This possession led to a corner-kick in the 28th minute which was swung into the near-post for Ronaldo who powered home from six yars out, no chance for Onana. This did not seem to deflate the young and fearless Amsterdam side who responded with a goal of their own six minutes later. The goal came from an Ajax build-up starting with their goalkeeper in which all eleven players on the team touched the ball, Johann Cruyff would be proud. Schoene is played wide and his cross was deflected to Ziyech at the top of the box who strikes toward goal, his shot dribbles through to Donny Van de Beek 12 yards out and totally unmarked. He slots home into the bottom right corner. The half ended with Ajax still struggling with the Juve press and doing their best to find quick outlets down the wing, around the midfield blockade.
Second Half
Ajax start the half in sixth gear and are creating lots of opportunities forcing two fantastic saves from Wojciech Szczesny in the space of five minutes. Juve had chances of their own particularly one from the eighteen year old starlet Moise Kean in the 61st minute who had come on for the injuredDybala at the start of the half. By around the 63rd minute Ajax begin slicing through Juventus like warm butter. They have been keeping the ball for most of the half and begin putting it to good use creating glance after glance at goal and the Old Lady apparently on her heals. In the 67th minute this pressure lead to a corner-kick for Ajax. The ball was swung in toward De Ligt, Ajax’s 19 year old captain who power over three Juventus defenders to power it in. At this point with two away goals Juventus would need to score two and Ajax showed no signs of stopping. Although Ronaldo is always a threat and headed two chances straight at Onana, the game ended with the young Amsterdam side going through to the Semi-Finals of the Champions League. Incredible.
GOALKEEPERS:
Wojciech Szczesny: As mentioned in the review of the last game, the Polish international has had a tough road to get to where he is, but it is evident that the road has shaped a fine goalkeeper who has matured at Juventus the way wine matures in a cellar. Other than the Ajax goal, the first half was largely uneventful for the Pole having very little to do aside from playing a few short passes to his center-backs and clearing his lines. The goal left Szczensy stranded by his defender as Van de Beek was completely unmarked behind his back-line. The finish from Van de Beek was very good to slot it to Szczesny’s left and I do not think he had any chance to save it. Szczesny came up very big in the beginning of the half for Juventus and kept them in the game. The first save he made came when Van de Beek played a ball through for Ziyech to Szczesny’s left inside the box. As we saw in the first leg, Szczesny reads the shooter’s body shape and begins leaning toward where his body indicates that the ball will go. In this case, the ball is far closer to Szczesny and he reaches up a left palm to stop it from going in over his head as he leaned to his right. I am a fan of reading a striker’s body position and feel that goalkeepers are in the right to start moving once they have read it. This shows that even if the ball doesn’t go completely in the direction that a goalkeeper anticipates, as long as you are only leaning in that direction you are still able to make the save if it comes more central. The second save he made, only five minutes after the first, came from a curled effort from the top of the box from none other than Donny Van de Beek. The save was very similar to a save Szczesny made in the first leg. Szczesny pulsed his feet as the ball was being passed around the box until he saw Van de Beek pull his leg back and then set his feet. He then used one cross step from right to left before pushing off his left leg and tipping the ball over the bar with his top hand. Szczesny used his bottom hand to make the save in the first leg of the fixture which I think is an important thing to note as the position of the ball made it easier to reach with his top hand in this scenario and it does not have to be one or the other, a keeper can use both. It is also entirely possible that Szczesny is right-hand dominant and chose to use his right hand on both occasions.
ANDRE ONANA: It was a mostly quiet game for Onana. Despite the pressure that Juve applied to Ajax they only had a few clear-cut chances. Onana only had to record 3 saves that I can remember, two of which coming from Ronaldo headers that bounced before heading straight to the African ‘keeper. Juve chose to press Ajax in this match which I felt was the correct tactic as it chose Onana to kick the ball long on multiple occasions in this game, something that he did not do much of in the first leg allowing Ajax to routinely build attacks from the goalkeeper. He was able to find the open man left by the press (as discussed above) on a few occasions, but for the most part Juve forced him into creating a 50-50 ball between Tadic and the Juventus back-line. Onana made one impressive save in the first half from a Dybala volley with the outside of his foot heading for the side-netting to Onana’s left. The ‘keeper again showed how incredibly athletic he is by shuffling once to his left and springing off of his left foot to hold the mid-height volley. The save almost looked easy for him, but it was not a tame effort by any stretch of the imagination. Throughout the match, I noticed how amazingly calm Onana is in the Quarter-Finals of the Champions League. He did not look even a little bit nervous as displayed in the second half when he moaned at De Ligt for clearing a ball that he called to collect with three Juventus players inside his six yard box. He has supreme confidence in himself and does not seem to be bothered by much, this is a gift of the highest quality for a goalkeeper.
Safe Hands Review 