It’s the tie they’d all been hoping for. Our ex-Ajax quartet find themselves up against their former club for the first time on Tuesday night – in nothing less than a Champions League semi-final!
Jan Vertonghen, Christian Eriksen and Toby Alderweireld all grew up and emerged onto the senior stage with the illustrious Dutch outfit, while Davinson Sanchez spent a year honing his craft in Amsterdam after moving from Atletico Nacional in his homeland of Colombia.
Ahead of this intriguing two-legged European clash, the talented quartet took part in a special feature for our official matchday programme on Tuesday night – now available to pre-order – in which they reflect on their time in Amsterdam with the aid of a select set of photographs and explain what it means to them to be facing their old friends with a place in the Champions League Final up for grabs.
“It’s so weird!” smiled Jan. “I’ve always wanted to play against Ajax… even PSV or Feyenoord. I missed the two games against PSV earlier this season so I’ve never been back to Holland to play and now Ajax in the Champions League semi-final… it’s extremely weird for me as someone who grew up there. I grew up in the city, I grew up with everyone at the Club, I still know everyone and it’s going to be very strange to be on the other side.”
Read the views of Christian, Toby and Davinson in Tuesday night’s official matchday programme – available to pre-order online now and on sale around the stadium at the game, priced at £5 for our 100-page A4 Champions League special edition.
Here are some of the photos the lads looked back on and the memories they invoked of their time in Amsterdam…
Toby Alderweireld
Great! The three of us in one photo… and is Hugo Lloris playing for Lyon in this game? Yes, he would have been. It was in the Champions League – I think it was 0-0 away in Lyon. We drew 0-0 at home as well that year. Who could have known we’d all be here now in the semi-final of the competition with Spurs? We’ve come this far and hopefully we can go further. It’s nice to play with those boys, I’m very happy and it’s great to have them in the team – then and now.
This was my first game – the first time I played in the first team for Ajax. It was the second game of the Amsterdam Tournament against Inter (August, 2008) against all the big players. You can see Zlatan Ibrahimovic, I remember Adriano played as well – that was not a bad strike duo! We lost 1-0 but, yes, it was my first game at the highest level. You can see physically the difference between Zlatan and me. At that moment, you have a reality check, to see how much you have to do to become as strong as that.
My first goal in the Champions League against Auxerre away! It would have been in 2010/11. We lost 2-1 but again it was an honour to score. Always as a young boy I dreamed about playing in the Champions League and then scoring in the competition, it was an unbelievable feeling. Looking at my celebration there… I didn’t score that much so I didn’t know what to do! Maybe it was a bit of improvisation!
Christian Eriksen
This was my first European tie against Juventus away. I remember it was in February, 2010, because I made my Ajax debut in the January, played Juve in Europe in the February and then I got my debut for the Denmark national team in March, so those three months were hectic! This game was also at Juve’s old stadium, the Stadio Olimpico, so it was fun to have been able to play there. As a young kid, it was always good to test yourself against the big opponents and I was happy to get some playing time.
Yes! This was me celebrating a goal when we beat Manchester City 3-1 at home in the Champions League in 2012. It was an unbelievable achievement for us to beat City like that. We drew 2-2 away in Manchester as well and we showed that we could really compete against these teams and see how far we’d come. I remember I played as a false nine in this particular game and we won 3-1, so that was fun!
This one is with a good friend of mine, Viktor Fischer, a few weeks before I left. We’d won the Johan Cruyff Shield in 2013. There were a lot of Danish guys at the club so it was always good to hang around with them. Viktor played a few games at Middlesbrough a couple of years ago, it didn’t go as well as what he’d have hoped for but now he’s doing well at Copenhagen. I’ve played with him in the national team for many years now and also at Ajax when he came through – he’s a very good guy.
Davinson Sanchez
I scored a lot of goals! This was me celebrating one against AZ Alkmaar. It was quite late in the season and we won (4-1). I was blowing a kiss to Daniela in the crowd, the girl who is now my wife! It was a corner, I tried to score with my head, I couldn’t connect because the marker was in the way but then the ball was in the air and I managed to finish the action. In Spanish we call it the chilena – it’s the bicycle kick.
He is still the goalkeeper at Ajax now, Andre Onana. He’s a good friend, we still talk. We built up a good relationship when we played together. He’s a very, very good goalkeeper. This picture was taken in Schalke after the second leg of the Europa League quarter-final. We qualified on aggregate (4-3) after extra time to reach the semi-finals.
The Europa League Final against Manchester United in 2017. They had experienced players but we were an inexperienced team. For us, the most important thing was to behave like a normal game but they were so solid at the back, they didn’t concede a chance for us and we couldn’t shoot easily. It was a tactical game and they won 2-0. It was the worst feeling. In the picture, it was a good fight with (Marcus) Rashford – I didn’t concede any space when I clashed with him. My job in that moment was to stop him, Martial and Lingard.
Jan Vertonghen
Back in the day I used to take a couple of free-kicks. This is against Feyenoord in the Eredivisie. I didn’t score from this one, though! They were always interesting games against Feyenoord – it’s very, very intense, a big rivalry. There was always respect on the pitch but the games were so intense because of everything around them. You can see Luis Suarez there as well. Around that time we always had the upper hand on Feyenoord but we struggled in the away games. This one was 2-2.
This was in the UEFA Cup. Marco van Basten was the coach then – we played Aston Villa away. The funny thing was, all our game plan was around John Carew, the big Villa striker at the time. Even on the morning of the game, we’d practiced free-kicks on the golf course at the hotel. We went on the golf course and we defended, not with the ball, but set up our defensive line for free-kicks and how to defend. It was quite funny in the morning. Everything was quite focused on the big, tall striker Carew – and then we saw the teamsheet and he didn’t play! Everyone just started laughing! At the end we lost the game, 2-1 I think. I remember Martin Laursen scored from a corner.
We won the league here. This was my second league title with Ajax in 2012 and we made it back-to-back league wins as a result. It was a great season for us. We came back from being eight or nine points down and we had a great team. You can see Christian is there, Toby, Daley Blind, André Ooijer, Gregory van der Wiel – we had a strong squad and it was fantastic to lift the trophy as the Ajax captain. We won the league on this day at home to VVV-Venlo and we had one more away game afterwards against Vitesse.
