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Tonight Ajax hosts Chelsea in yet another exciting Champions League match in the Johan Cruyff ArenA. Close watchers of the club might have noticed: the supporters of this bright Amsterdam’ squad got used to success. The excitement about a 3-0 victory against Lille wasn’t as big as it would have been one year ago. But ever since that disastrous 96′ minute back in May there’s been one question every Ajax fan around the world had but never dared to speak out loudly.

As Ajax plays reigning Europa League champions Chelsea tonight, for the first time this season we might get a hint to the answer to that question: will we ever be able to do again what we did last year?

Of course, Ajax had some severe tests already but none of them required a state-of-the-art performance like Ajax managed to show in Madrid and Turin last year. The matches against PAOK and Apoel were indeed important but not answering that one question. And without denigrating Valencia and Lille it wasn’t the real deal. To be honest: in all of these matches, Ajax showed signs of weakness and vulnerability.

Back at home – in the Eredivisie- the sons of gods were stumbling into some difficult matches. Including the match of last Saturday against relegation candidate RKC Waalwijk in which the three points were taken but not in a way you might expect from a European superpower against a minor squad from an unknown town. Motivational problems and not wanting to dig in deep before such an important week could be an explanation for the lackluster performance in Waalwijk.

But the obvious answer for the difficult performances this season is also found in the absence of especially midfield playmaker Frenkie de Jong. A less obvious reason is the gap the experienced Dane Lasse Schone left behind. His 12,5 million replacement Răzvan Marin doesn’t seem to fit in the squad and now we’re left with playing two central defenders on our midfield. And while especially Lisandro Martinez shows signs of the potential we love to see in an Ajax player we’re back at that one question: can we do the same with this material?

Tonight’s opponent Chelsea FC is currently on a five-match winning streak and offers Ajax the opportunity to raise to last year’s level. For all of you fans of our beloved AFC Ajax, this is a night to fear and look forward to. Cause tonight Ajax’ gonna answer our cursed question.

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