THURLIE'S VIEW
Tonight I'm delighted to welcome Johan Cruyff and his Ajax team
to Oriel Park for tonight's 1st Round, 2nd Leg European Cup Winners's
Cup Tie. After losing the first leg by 4 goals to nil we have to approach
this game as a one-off match.
I was very happy with our performance in the first leg, despite the
scoreline, and I could not have asked anything more from my players;
they give their all. It was a great achievement to keep Ajax scoreless for
65 minutes but I felt we had been lucky earlier on when Ajax went close
to scoring on a few occasions so I suppose our luck in the first half worked
against us in the second.
Ajax are one of the most attractive teams in Europe and their brand
of football is a joy to watch. They play a 3-5-3 system with two men
wide. Frank Rijlaard ia the engine room of the team and he was a par
ticular thorn in our side in the first leg and I'm not surprised he is ear
marked to move to Italy at the end of the season.
Another player that impressed me was Johnny Bosman. He was
substituted in the first leg but he scored a hatrick in a 4-0 win last Sun
day. Brian Roy, their gifted winger is only 17 years old but he is definitely
going to be a world class player. You only have to look at Ajax goalscor-
ing record to see that the only way they know how to defend is to at
tack. This season alone they have scored 4 goals three times in a game,
along with a 5-2 win and a 6-1 win in only eight games. Don't get my
wrong though. I won't be sending out the team tonight to admire the
skills of the Dutch team. We will be going at them straight from the kick-
off and we certainly won't have any inferiority complex.
One thing that pleased me after first leg was our league form before
and after the game in Holland. There seems to be physcological afflic
tion that hits any League of Ireland club the Sundays before and after
they play in Europe when they seem to perform badly so I was very happy
with our 2 wins over Cork City and Limerick.
ENJOY TONIGHT'S GAME!!
TURLOUGH O'CONNOR
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