‘There is no defense against that’

“We have to give the credits to Lazio. They are doing great in Serie A and the Europa League,” said Farioli. “Our players showed resistance at a high level. We deserved more. Actually, we even deserved to win.”

Many will undoubtedly disagree with that. Farioli tried to substantiate his opinion by considering the odds ratio. “We created a lot of chances and conceded very few opportunities. We hit the post twice and may have to get a penalty.”

There might have been more room, but in the end you don’t buy anything for that. And if Ajax really deserved the victory, why did it still leave the field as a loser? “They have so much individual quality. There is no defense against that.”

“If someone is faster, you can’t do anything about it. If someone is stronger, you can’t do anything about it,” Farioli continues. “We could have chosen to drop and play on the counter, but we don’t want that. We played our own game, knowing this could happen. The physical difference between the two teams was the decisive factor.”

Farioli’s team has not won three times in a row. At a club like Ajax, the pressure comes on quickly, but the coach absolutely does not want to talk about a crisis situation. That term also seems a bit exaggerated to us. Farioli: “It is not surprising to be positive at the moment. We have already won twenty matches. We needed a whole season for that last year.”

Due to the defeat against Lazio, Ajax drops to eleventh place in the Europa League. Only the first eight teams qualify directly for the next round. The Ajax players are currently in a position that entitles them to play a play-off round. All clubs are close to each other, so anything is possible.

“We still play against FK RFS and at home against the strong Galatasaray. If we look at our long journey in Europe, eleventh place is already quite good. We are all close together. We first want to secure a spot among the top 24 teams. If we are good enough in the last two games, we can go for more.”