"Winter in the Champions League is not enough" | Football

Profit on AEK Athens is enough. And if Benfica is not victorious at Bayern Munich, Ajax will even win the Champions League if they lose the Greek champions. The number two of the first division, although not at all poor, can call the cash register of the country which, after eight years of cuts, has officially become financially independent since August. The earnings of this lucrative tournament exceed 60 million euros if a place in the last 16 is assured.

The Olympic stadium where Van Basten scored against Lokomotive Leipzig (1-0) was the subject of a major refurbishment of the 2004 Olympics. At least 20,000 tickets for the match with Ajax n & rsquo; Have not been sold yet. AEK is still scoreless in the Champions League and dropped last weekend in the Netherlands to seventh place in the standings. This is now officially the crisis. Like Bayern Munich and Benfica, the other opponents of the Ajax group E.

Coach Erik ten Hag missing the injured Hakim Ziyech and suspends the suspension of Nicolás Tagliafico, the Argentine who had scored twice in the AEK home game (3-0). David Neres and Maximilian Wöber seem to be the most logical substitutes. "But we have more than 11 basic players," Ten Hag said. "We are going to send a strong team to the field, we want to win every game, so tomorrow we will do it too."

Little Ajax's coach says that AEK does is not in good shape. "We just have to look at ourselves and be stoic," he said. "We want to win and not depend on other teams."

Frenkie de Jong discovered that Ajax ended up in a stream. "We have won in recent weeks and often with good football," he concluded. "For me, our European adventure is not a success when we reach the round of 16. We then took another step in the right direction."

The match starts at 18:55 in Athens. The other match of the group, between Bayern Munchen and Benfica, begins two hours later. "You would have preferred to start at the same time," Ten Hag said. "But this is not the case, so we have to accept it.Our starting point remains the same: we want to win, so that we do not depend on the other teams."