‘This one arrives, eventually we’re going to learn from it’

With the elimination in Europe, third place in the premier league and today’s loss in the KNVB Cup final, it is a lost season for Ajax. “This one is coming. We have to process this,” Ajax coach John Heitinga said. “The poison cup has to be emptied.”

We have been spoiled in recent years,” the coach continued. “A lot of players have left. That’s a fact. Now we have to make the right choices for the future, build a new team and be realistic. The position where we are now is not without reason.”

For Heitinga, added to the disappointment over the loss is uncertainty about his future. He does not yet know whether he will also be the coach at Ajax next year. “I’m done with those questions,” the coach responded irritably. “If there is more info, I will share it.”

So soon after the defeat, Heitinga was already talking about the next game, Saturday against AZ in Amsterdam. “We have to move on very quickly,” Heitinga said. “We have to fight. I also told the boys that although we lost a final, in the end you learn from it.”

Davy Klaassen dropped out with cramp toward the end of the extension. A physical match, with a huge number of irritations and as many as eleven yellow cards, had clearly taken its toll.

Watch the interview with Davy Klaassen here:

After weeks of discussion about the misbehavior of supporters in the stadiums, now the players showed their worst side at times. You do notice that you can get into a match with that,” Klaassen defended that attitude. “I quite believe that things happen then that are not neat, in which you sometimes go a little too far.”

“Ajax should always be a fighting machine,” the midfielder continued. “In the years when we played well, that was always one of our strengths.”

Should Ajax have trained on penalty kicks? “That remains a lottery,” Heitinga said.

And no, the coach didn’t regret not paying extra attention to it afterwards, either. “We had a list, but some of them we had already changed.”