Shock in the Netherlands! Ajax recorded the worst cup result in the club’s history, knocked out by amateurs. This shouldn’t have happened, said the coach

No one in Amsterdam would put that behind their hat. The famous Ajax has already reached the 16th final of the Dutch Cup after being knocked out by an amateur team from the fourth highest competition. Not only assistant coach Michael Valkanis was surprised.

Nobody expected such a result. The most successful club in the Netherlands, Ajax Amsterdam, is already in the 16th final of the domestic cup (KNVB Beker), having lost to an amateur team from the fourth highest competition.

Yes, Ajax fielded mostly players who don’t normally play in the starting line-up. But the first indisputable fact is that of course the players from the bench should have a clear qualitative advantage over such an opponent.

In addition, Ajax had in the starting line-up for this match also players who regularly appear in the starting eleven. For example, Josip Šutalo, Kenneth Taylor and English forward Chuba Akpom played against USV Hercules.

However, it was the famous team that was losing from the beginning of the match. Tim Pieters opened the scoring in the 16th minute, but Ajax could not equalise until the end of the first half.

Pieters then scored once more in the second half, in the 66th minute. The amateur team was already leading 2:0 and the visitors were in a tight spot. Brian Brobbey and Chuba Akpom then managed to level the score at 2: 2 in the 83rd and 89th minutes respectively, only for that final blow to come in the second half.

Ajax recorded the worst cup result in the club’s history

Mats Grotenbreg’s strike was the last one of the game and decided the victory of the team from the fourth league. It should be noted that nothing like this has ever happened to Ajax in the club’s history. In other words, the most successful team in the Netherlands has never lost to amateurs in the cup.

“It’s very disappointing. We have a lot of work to do and we need to fix something with the squad. We will work on it. This should never have happened,” said assistant coach Michael Alkanis in an interview with the club’s website.

“We were too static and we said at half-time that we had to speed up the game in the second half. Still, we made too many mistakes. We didn’t get into the game properly until the last ten minutes,” he explained the flow of the game.

“It’s not good, and we are in the middle of a very difficult season. But we have to keep going and get things back on track,” the assistant head coach is clear. John van ‘t Schip could not be there for this game as he was in Australia for his son’s wedding.

Source: Ajax Amsterdam, KNVB Beker, X