THE A J A X CONNECTION
"This one is with a good friend of mine, Viktor
Fischer, a few weeks before I left. We'd won
the Johan Cruyff Shield in 2013. There were
a lot of Danish guys at the club so it was
always good to hang around with them. Viktor
played a few games at Middlesbrough a
couple of years ago, it didn't go as well as
what he'd have hoped for but now he's doing
well at Copenhagen. I've played with him in
the national team for many years now and
also at Ajax when he came through - he's a
very good guy!'
"We played Real Madrid three seasons on
the bounce and we didn't win one game out
of the six we played! It was always a struggle
to play against Real, they were a strong team
and it was difficult. Now Ajax can beat those
teams, as they've shown this season, so that's
different compared to what we were capable
of doing at the time. It was fun to test yourself
against teams like Real but obviously it didn't
go as planned! This one was from the second
season we played them (2011/12) and they beat
us 3-0 at the Bernabeu!'
"I remember this game! It was fun to play Manchester United at that time. For us at Ajax, it was a
great achievement to play against big opponents and to play against a team like this was always an
excellent experience. We won 2-1 at Old Trafford in this game but lost 2-0 at home before that so
unfortunately we didn't make it through to the next round. It was in the Europa League in 2011/12."
"This was my first European tie against Juventus
away. I remember it was in February, 2010,
because I made my Ajax debut in the January,
played Juve in Europe in the February and then
I got my debut for the Denmark national team
in March, so those three months were hectic!
This game was also at Juve's old stadium, the
Stadio Olimpico, so it was fun to have been able
to play there. As a young kid, it was always good
to test yourself against the big opponents and
I was happy to get some playing time."
"Yes! This was me celebrating a goal when
we beat Manchester City 3-1 at home in
the Champions League in 2012. It was an
unbelievable achievement for us to beat City
like that. We drew 2-2 away in Manchester
as well and we showed that we could really
compete against these teams and see how
far we'd come. I remember I played as a false
nine in this particular game and we won 3-1,
so that was fun!"
Christian on tonight's semi-final: "It will be very special, especially to go back to Amsterdam next week. I played with some of their
players for many years so I know a lot of them and it will be fun to play against them. Always you want to go back in a European tie
or something like that. Ajax helped me a lot - even in Europe. It was what you played for in the league and it's the same here at Spurs
now - you want to play to be in the Champions League for next season. We did that at Ajax and it meant you could learn a lot and see
what everything is like."
OFFICIAL MATCHDAY PROGRAMME
