Thursday opponent: Ajax.

The Amsterdam logo depicts a black pole representing the Amstel river on a red field, then on this black pole there are 3 St. Andrew's crosses which is probably the symbol of Jan Persijn, who was lord of the city from 1280 to 1282. The motto is Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig, that is valiant, decided, merciful.

Lancers have always promoted Dutch youth. As Van Der Sar, who is part of Ajax's management, pointed out in an interview with SKY, the choice of young people is necessary due to the low turnover of the club and Dutch football. Ajax are anyway a noble club in Europe with 3 European Cups and 1 Champions League on the bulletin board. Also in 2018-19, the red and white Dutch reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, eliminating another great Italian team like Juve. The Dutch football turnover problem could be solved by joining the Belgian league (in 25-26), which will raise the value of the new tournament and bring significant revenues to the Belgian-Dutch teams.

Ajax's tactical philosophy is domination of the opponent, especially in this specific match where they have to score at least 2 goals. So we don't have to go too far in defense, but in any case the best attitude is to defend and counterattack, which they suffer a lot. It will be essential to score first, better if we go 2-0. Mainly we have to go find our man on the offside line. In any case, it does not occur to us that the lancers could be discouraged. They will play their best with any result: this is the Dutch sporting culture (and Northern Europe in general) that has a lot to teach us Latins.

Why do Ajax perform better away than at home? Because the reasoning of the home team is “I'm in control here”, so the Dutch find teams more open and have more room for offensive play. For this with defense and counterattack and above all with our counterattack which is deadly, we can beat them even in the second leg

There was some imperfections but the prematch of first leg is good enough to prepare us for the second leg too. One imperfection was placing Alvarez as a central back, while on Thursday he played as a midfielder. It must be said that Ten Hag's great doubt in the pre-match is the right-back, given that Mazraoui is still in doubt (even if some media give him a starter), Rensch is disqualified, so he could play with Klaiber. In any case, they are forced solutions and we will have to push especially on our left, their right, where the dialogue between Calafiori and Mkhitaryan can be decisive.

Another aspect to underline is that we must not rule out a priori that they can play with a real striker like Brobbey, putting Neres right striker and Tadic left striker. This would give the opponent more quality on the wings, but the precautions are the same as Neres left striker and Antony right striker. Let's remember that they are all left feet, so the right attacker will try to go to the middle to shoot with the left, while the left attacker will look for an assist.

Let us expect technical quality, dominance of the pitch and a combative attitude from the opponent. We will have to stay focused and gritty. The goal is not to suffer or at least suffer without capitulating and scoring at least two goals. We will bring home the qualification in our home: the Olimpico. Daje Roma!

Giordano Sepi