THE LEGEND-TEAM FROM UA"!"
AMSTERDAM
CHAMPIONS
In the entire world, few teams can
compare their successes to those of
Ajax. Ninety six years after its found
ing, the great team from Amsterdam
can be proud that over the past few
years, it is the best, on a worldwide
scale. The past 25 years it has won
all the trophies that a team could win
in international competitions. A four-
time champion in Europe, one time
cup Winners Cup winners and one
time UEFA Cup Winners, three-time
winner of the European Super Cup
and two-time winner of the
Intercontinental Cup.
Greek fans, especially those of
younger generations, are warm sup
porters of the team which has taken
its name from a character of mythi
cal Greek history, the Trojan war
fighter, Aias or Telamonius.
Greece has proven to be a lucky
country for Ajax. Three out of the
four times that it challenged the
Greek team in the past, it won a
European trophy and after one of
these, it even celebrated in Athens!
Its first contact with a Greek team
was during the final of a European
Cup game, in 1971when it won
Panathinaikos 2-0 and this game in
Wembley was the starting point of a
three-year domination in the
European arena.
For many people that team with
Cruyff, Kaizer, Neeskens, Flaan,
Muhren, Hulsof, Blankenburg,
Suurbier, Rep was one of the best of
all times.
The period 1986-87 challenged and
eliminated Olympiakos in the second
round of the Cup Winners Cup (4-0,
1 -1and subsequently won the tro
phy, beating Lokomotive Leipzig by
1-0, in the final at the Olympic stadi
um in Athens.
With the coaching of Johan Cruyff,
Ajax had produced a significant new
generation, the generation of Van
Basten, Bosman, Rijkaard, Winter,
Wouters, Witsche, Van
SchipBergkamp.
In last year's competition of
Champion's League, its first trip was
to Athens where it beat AEK by 2-1
while it repeated its success in
Amsterdam (2-0) subsequently cap
turing the trophy. Greek fans also got
to know the third great generation of
today's aces of Ajax.
The only time that it did not succeed
was when it was eliminated by
Olympiakos in the first round of the
the European Cup in the period of
1983-84 (0-0, 0-2).
