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England were world champions and Liverpool were England champions, and yet by the time the sky cleared, Bill Shankly’s team had been destroyed and Ajax was soaring into another orbit.
This is the legendary mistwedstrijd, the game of fog, which is played in the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam and, although it has been more than half a century, few Dutch football fans are unaware of its importance.
It was the moment when Rinus Michels, Johan Cruyff and Total Football went international. There’s no way this is getting lost in the mists of time.
“This was the start of Ajax in Europe, we had a good team and those years from ’66 to ’73 were great for us,” says Sjaak Swart, the former winger known as Mr Ajax, who signed at the age of nine. club, record 596 appearances and still regularly plays 11 soccer at the age of 82.
“More than 40 competitive games last season,” he adds, although he has gone from the right wing to a free role in midfield. “I must have played more soccer games than anyone else in the world.”
Still, the December 1966 mistwedstrijd stands out and Swart tells Sportsmail how the night almost produced a very different narrative.
“We spent three days in the Zeist camp, a small town nearby,” he says. “We were in our cars and not with the team bus. We left for the stadium in the fog. All the boys left, but my car, an old Citroen, didn’t.
“ I was with Johan Cruyff, Klaas Nuninga and Bennie Muller and it was half an hour before we could get the car going. When we finally got to the stadium, Michels said: ‘Normally I would send them all home, but okay, let’s go.’
“The result was fantastic. One of those games where everything worked out in our favor. Piet Keizer was out and Cees de Wolf replaced him. De Wolf came in and scored the first goal in the third minute.
‘There were no substitutes. Wim Suurbier, our right back, got injured very early and we played most of the game with 10 men. He played in two positions: right back and right back.
At 3-0, the referee whistled for what I thought was half-time and was heading towards the locker room when one of the directors of the Ajax board yelled at me: ‘What are you doing?’ I said it was half time. He said, ‘No it’s not, come back.’
“ As I ran back onto the field, Bennie Muller had the ball and he passed it to me. I passed a couple of players, made a cross and Nuninga scored to make it 4-0.
The fog was even worse in the second half. “We couldn’t see from midfield to goal, but the referee said we should play,” says Swart. The fans couldn’t see anything, but they were cheering when they found out that we had scored. Nobody thought that we could win against Liverpool, one of the best teams in the world, with Roger Hunt in attack and Ron Yeats in the back. ”
Shankly claimed it was an extraordinary result, due to the conditions, and promised to win 7-0 in the second leg, but 19-year-old Cruyff ran the show at Anfield, scoring twice before Hunt saved some pride with a late tie.
A 2-2 draw meant they finished 7-3 on aggregate and Shankly was the first to enter the Ajax dressing room, shaking hands with the visitors. ‘He said,’ Well done guys, that was fantastic, ‘Swart recalls. “After tonight, I was always in love with English football. I will never forget the atmosphere and the fans who sing I’ll Never Walk Alone. I got goosebumps.
The draw also made a big impression on Cruyff. “Although I am bad at remembering matches, I can still remember almost everything about the legendary mistwedstrijd at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam and the comeback at Anfield in Liverpool,” he wrote in his autobiography My Turn.
“We had confirmation that we were technically superior and that everything Michels was implementing was working.”
Michels built around this team, Cruyff flourished and they conquered Europe. This season marks the 50th anniversary of the first of their hat-trick of European Cup victories, when they beat Panathinaikos 2-0 at Wembley in 1971. The following year they swept everything in front of them, defeating Inter de Milan to retain their European title, winning the Eredivisie and the Dutch Cup, an unofficial Super Cup against Rangers, who were serving a UEFA competition penalty, and the Intercontinental Cup against Independiente de Argentina.
“We were the first to win them all, before Bayern Munich or Barcelona or Real Madrid,” says Swart, who retired from professional football in 1973 when the team began to disband.
Thus began the first of many regenerations for Ajax. They won the Champions League in 1995, with the De Boer twins Clarence Seedorf, Edgar Davids, Patrick Kluivert and Marc Overmars on the team.
Surprisingly, considering the consistency of the two clubs in Europe, tomorrow’s Champions League clash will be the first time they have faced Liverpool since then in any competition. They were close in 2019 though. Ajax were 3-0 up with 35 minutes to play Tottenham in the Champions League semi-final. Liverpool were waiting for the winners and it turned out to be Spurs after Lucas Moura completed his hat-trick in the sixth minute of stoppage time. Liverpool won its sixth European Cup. Ajax is two behind four.
“A great shame,” says Swart. “Ajax was much better than Tottenham, but we made two mistakes and we were punished.”
A familiar pattern developed as the wealthiest clubs in Europe again dismantled another generation of talent. Frenkie de Jong, the exceptional young star of this vintage, and Matthijs de Ligt left last year for Barcelona and Juventus respectively. This year Hakim Ziyech went to Chelsea, Donny van de Beek to Manchester United and Sergino Dest joined De Jong at Barça.
The cycle spins faster than ever and yet Ajax is used to it. They are investing heavily in rebuilding, spending a lot of money by Eredivisie standards to replace Ziyech with Brazilian winger Antony, £ 13 million from Sao Paulo, and young Ghanaian star Mohammed Kudus, £ 8 million from Nordsjaelland.
They have broken their salary structure to sign former Premier League players such as Dusan Tadic, Daley Blind and Davy Klaassen, and made a serious attempt to bring Luis Suárez back to Amsterdam before opting for Atlético Madrid.
“They have a good technical coach and good players,” says Swart. And this will be an interesting test of them against Liverpool, one of the best teams in the world. The only shame is that there will be no fans inside the stadium to see it. ”
A match in the fog, the final that never was and now a draw behind closed doors.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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