21 Sep 2002

Ajax and PSV are the only teams not to have dropped a point so far this season though the Amsterdammers made unnecessarily hard work of dealing with RBC Roosendaal tonight, where Henk Voss celebrated his 400th professional match, and almost gave away a 0-3 lead in the closing stages of the match. They kicked-off at a cracking pace and Maxwell, Van der Meyde and Zlatan, especially, had several good chances to go ahead in theng quarter of an hour but his efforts were parried by Aerts and the post. It took till favourite-son Jari Litmanen appeared for the back of the net to be finally found. Appearing as as substitute for young Brazilian Maxwell, he was once more quick to make his presence felt, feeding Zlatan Ibrahimovic with a ball that the Swedish international sent past goalie Maikel Aerts for the 1-0 in the 58th. A bit of a downer is the news of his injury, which the Fin picked up 9 minutes after appearing. Litmanen doesn't want to risk a more serious thigh muscle injury with the Champions League match against Inter Milan at the door and decided to drop out to prevent any further strain. Tomás Galásek increased the lead with a 2nd in the 67th with a beauty of a strike. When Cristian Chivu put away a spot-shot in 75th, for a hands-ball by former Ajax player Melvin Fleur, the match seemed wrapped up. However, RBC fought back with goals by former Ajax striker Nordin Wooter in the 82nd and Geert den Ouden in the 88th that were not quite enough to earn the Roosendaalers a point but did make the last minutes tense and exciting to watch.