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A tremendous Ajax did not give the English
champions a shimmer ot change. Manager Bill
Shankley refused to acknowledge defeat. Back in
England, he belittled Ajax' performance, blamed it
all on the fog. 'In Liverpool we shall win by at
least six goals,' he blurted out. But the Scotsman
was wrong. On December 14th, Ajax went
fearlessly on the attack. After being twice in
the lead, they ended up with an honourable 2—2
draw.
In the quarter finals Ajax played Dukla-Prague. At
Amsterdam great old Masopust and his men stole
at 1 —1 draw. Still all hope was not lost, certainly
not, when outside-right Swart put Ajax in the
lead at Prague. A few moments later the referee
whistled for a foul by Pronk; and penalty made it
1 1Extra time was in sight, when Soetekouw
diverted a high centre by Masopust leaving goalie
Bals no chance. An effective ricochet
eliminated Ajax from the Cup.
In 1967, Ajax met in the first round no less
than Real Madridl
On September 20th, Real Madrid discovered the
strength of Ajax. The Spanish champions had a
narrow escape in the very first Cup-tie. The 1 1
draw in the Olympic Stadium at Amsterdam was
very much against the run of the play. The away
game in Madrid on October 11was one of the
most enervating battles in the history of Ajax.
After ninety minutes of forceful and heartwarm
ing football the score was still 1 1In the first
half of extra time Ajax, who had dominated the
play in the last fifteen minutes, went into the
{offensive. Real, tired and frightened, did not
launch one single probe. There was a strong
whiff of defeat in the Madrid air.
After a splendid action of
outside-left Keizer, Johan Cruyff had a beautiful
scoring chance with only goalkeeper Junquera
between himself and the net, but the otherwise
infallible marksman pushed the ball simply into
the hands of the Real goalie. It was only in the
second half of extra time thatoutside-rightVeloso
lashed in from a great distance, leaving the Dutch
goalkeeper Bals no chance. It was a lucky win,
even president Bernabeu agreed. He
congratulated his Dutch colleague with Ajax'
grand-style play. And trainer Munoz said. 'This
could have been the European Cup final.'
Can we add to the above that this year Ajax won
the Dutch Cup, again, in all for the fourth time.
For the European championship in 1968 Ajax
pushed out of the way successively, FC
Nurnberg, Fenerbahce SK (Istanbul), Benfica in
the unforgettable final match at Paris—and
Spartak Trnava (CSSR)in this way they
reached the final against AC Milan.
At the end of May 1969 Ajax lost, but in one of
the most enervating battles in their history, at
Madrid, in the famous Bernabeu Stadium by
4-1.
Further too, the year 1969 was one of less
success. No League-championship, no winner of
the Dutch Cup and, of course, no European Cup.
Now Ajax took part in the International
Fairscup, in which they knocked out, Hannover
'96, Ruch Chorkov (Poland, SSC Napoli (Italy)
and CZJ Jena (Eastern Germany) meeting in the
semi-final, Arsenal. In London Ajax suffered a
defeat of 3—0; at home the London-team was
only beaten by 1 —0, so that Arsenal went into
the final.
The season of 1969-1970 brought Ajax to their
fourteenth League-championship and it seemed
to be that another period of glory rung in; they
won the Dutch Cup too. For the European Cup,
17. Nendori Tirana (Albania), FC Basel, Celtic and
Atletico Madrid did not have any chance against
the Amsterdam Red-Whites; for the second time
in its history Ajax reached the final.
It was the second of June 1971Thousands and
thousands of supporters had made the trip to the
Wembley-stadium in London. More than thirty
thousand Dutch people were together in the
'holy-church' of the British Football-Association.
Panathinaikos.the'galopping Greek team of mister
Puskas' were the opponents. After the kick-off at
7.30 Ajax went fearlessly into the attack. Johan
Cruyff, Ajax' splendid forward, got two, three
chances but he failed. And then after twenty
minutes Dick Van Dijk scored the first goal after a
splendid action of outside-left Piet Keizer. Even in
the second half Ajax had a handfull of scoring-
chances, but the players were too upset to
change the score. But in the last five minutes Arie
Haan, one of the youngsters, who was sent on
the field as substitute for Swart, made Ajax'
second goal. For the second time in two years a
Dutch team (Feyenoord in 1970) had won the
European Cup.
Finishing the League of 1970-1971, not Ajax but
Feyenoord-Rotterdam were the Dutch
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