Ajax News 10.25.07

By: bryan | October 25th, 2007

Club news:
• Ajax travels to Utrecht on Sunday. Ajax currently sits in third place, two behind leaders Feyenoord and one behind second-place PSV. Groningen is in fourth, four points behind Ajax. Feyenoord travels to Twente this weekend.

• Maarten Stekelenburg, who was replaced midway through Ajax’s 0-0 draw with NEC over the weekend, is out for about two weeks with a broken finger. Stekelenburg saved a penalty in that game, his third of the young season. That’s remarkable. Or, as Jack Edwards would say, “gotta be a first round, World Cup record!!”

• Ajax will travel to Dubai over the winter break to participate in a tournament featuring Inter Milan, Internacional (Brazil) and Zamelek (Egypt). The matches will take place January 5th and 7th, and the prize money for this tournament is a hearty $2.5 million US, with the winner earning $1m. Since they were eliminated from the UEFA Cup, this will be the best competition Ajax will face outside their own domestic oppositions this year. And since I remember that tournament was shown on Fox Soccer Channel last year, maybe it’s something to look forward to.

• I’m surprised Martin Jol has been able to hang on for so long this season at Tottenham, given their poor start and the pressure mounting on him. The Telegraph reported the other day that Sevilla coach Juande Ramos was photographed meeting with Spurs officials, and now Mark Hughes is supposed to be the leader. Simply put, Jol is done. Jol would be a sensible choice to take over permanently for Adrie Koster at Ajax. They could surely do worse.

• Goal.com has an update on the Urby situation. It was nice to see him back off the speculation a bit, but it was his own fault for starting it and openly dreaming of a move abroad. Funny how the Ajax Board and the players have a way of turning on each other all the time, and we have no idea who to believe.

• Meanwhile, Goal.com is also reporting that Jaap Stam will retire at the end of the season. Given his history of injuries and age, this isn’t much of a surprise. Goal says Ajax is chasing Serbian defender Branislav Ivanovic as his replacement. “The Rock of Kampen” is called “one of the best central defenders of his generation,” a title we’ve all heard used way too freely it seems. He currently plays for Lokomotive Moscow and represented Serbia in last summer’s U-21 European Championships in the Netherlands. Goal.com takes over:

Ajax’s technical director Martin Van Geel confirmed the club’s interest in signing Ivanovic in an interview with ‘Voetbal International’, a football magazine with a weekly circulation of about 800.000.

According to reports in the Netherlands the Amsterdam giants want to get the job done in January and not in the summer.

However, the buy-out clause of 15 million is a major obstacle, as is the interest other big European clubs have already expressed.

The former FK Srem defender’s contract runs until December 31, 2011 and the likes of Internazionale, Juventus Turin, Manchester City are already in the hunt, ‘La Vecchia Signora’ prepared to include Tiago in the deal.

Encouraging, I suppose, but sounds unlikely to come to Ajax.