Ajax v. Lyon: The Dutch Perspective

The wink that sunk the Ajax?

We asked our man in Amsterdam Joep Smeets* about the Dutch perspective on the results from yesterday in the Champions League that crashed Ajax out of the tournament and kept Lyon in. Truth be told, their reaction doesn’t seem to be too far from the reaction of many other non-Dutch.

*He’s not really in Amsterdam.

We Dutch love blaming our failures on anyone but ourselves. When we crashed out of Euro 2008 it was because of the shocking decision of referee Lubos Michel, who didn’t send off Denis Kolodin. And, let’s just say Howard Webb can still not show himself in the low countries after botching the World Cup Final in 2010. Yes, we deserved at least three red cards, but so did Spain.

With that in mind, one can imagine the outrage following the way in which Eredivisie champions Ajax crashed out of the Champions League on Wednesday. After a loss to Real Madrid, two draws against Lyon and two wins against Zagreb the odds were firmly stacked in Ajax’ favour. They led Lyon by three points and seven goals.

I myself was driving home from work, listening to the radio. With the score 0-1 in the Amsterdam Arena, I heard two Ajax goals being disallowed for offsides. According to the Dutch radio commentators, both goals should have stood.

Judge for yourselves:

Offside? Or not offside?

Ok, so two perfectly good goals were disallowed. It happens. But, on a night where goal difference proved to be crucial that is pretty tough to swallow. After another Madrid goal before halftime attention switched to Zagreb. Dinamo had just scored the first goal of the match despite being a man down against Lyon. The difference was still six goals, and Ajax had given a good account of themselves in the first 45 minutes. Then Lyon equalized. Five goals difference, 45 minutes left.
Suddenly those two disallowed goals started to look a bit more important.

What happened next in Zagreb boggles the mind.

After having scored just three goals in their entire campaign, Lyon doubled their tally in seven minutes: 1-4. Two goals difference. Lyon were given free pass thereafter and scored three more to acquire a one goal advantage over Ajax. In the thirty minutes after halftime, Lyon scored six goals.

As sudden as the flurry of goals had started, it stopped. It was enough.

Suddenly, those two disallowed goals were the difference between qualification and defeat.
Now, of course, the Dutch are crying foul. NOS-analyst Youri Mulder, ever the subtle one, was the first to flat out suggest that the result in Zagreb might have been fixed.

The country is in uproar over a wink a Zagreb defender supposedly gave to Gomis. Over how Lyon, in the midst of the most amazing comeback in CL history, didn’t crack a smile. It’s all circumstantial, but an investigation by French agency ARJEL into what happened in Zagreb has been launched.

Dinamo has threathened legal steps if the insinuations don’t let off. That might be a bit much; according to the Guardian, Dinamo vice president Zdravko Mamic has admitted to numerous cases of match fixing.

Of course we considered the possibility of Ajax losing out. The Amsterdammers had to face Real Madrid and Lyon played against one of the worst teams in this year’s Champions League. A 0-4 loss to Madrid was considered well within the realms of the possible, and nobody doubted Lyon could put three past Zagreb. But seven? In little over thirty minutes?
Looking at the highlights from the Dinamo – Lyon game one thing becomes clear; Dinamo gave it their all for 45 minutes, then just laid down for the next thrity. Fix or not, the defending and goalkeeping on those six goals was atrocious at best – and suspicious at worst.