[CL] Ajax v Celtic #1 De negatieve spirit doorbroken?

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AFC Ajax have made their worst start to a UEFA Champions League campaign but Celtic FC's away record should give them some hope as the sides meet in Amsterdam.

AFC Ajax are looking to put their worst start to a UEFA Champions League campaign behind them when they welcome Celtic FC to Amsterdam.

• The four-time European Cup winners have never before failed to win any of their opening three group stage games but that is the situation Ajax find themselves in in Group H, where they sit bottom with just a point. All is not lost, though; Frank de Boer's team can leapfrog Celtic in the standings by avenging their 2-1 defeat in Glasgow last time out.

• Celtic go into the game knowing a victory would lift them to second in the group should AC Milan lose at FC Barcelona in the day's other Group H fixture.

Previous meetings
• Celtic got the better of Ajax when the clubs last met in the 2000/01 third qualifying round. Martin O'Neill's Celtic won the first leg 3-1 in Amsterdam, with Bobby Petta (7) and Didier Agathe (19) scoring early and Chris Sutton (55) adding a third after Shota Arveladze (40) had pulled a goal back.

• Wamberto's 30th-minute goal gave Co Adriaanse's Ajax a narrow second-leg win but it was Celtic who advanced to the group stage for the first time. That Celtic side included Neil Lennon – making his first appearances in Europe for the club – and Johan Mjällby, now manager and assistant manager respectively.

• The lineups for that first-leg meeting in Amsterdam on 8 August 2001 were:
Ajax: Grim, Trabelsi, Yakubu (Van der Meyde 74), Pasanen, Chivu, Cruz, Van der Vaart, Ikedia, (Ibrahimović 46), Arveladze, Machlas, Mido.
Celtic: Douglas, Boyd, Valgaeren, Mjällby, Agathe, McNamara, Lennon, Lambert, Petta (Guppy 87), Sutton, Larsson (Hartson 84).

• Ajax won the clubs' first encounter in the 1970/71 European Champion Clubs' Cup quarter-finals en route to lifting the trophy for the first time. Johan Cruyff, Barrie Hulshoff and Piet Keizer scored in a 3-0 first-leg win in Amsterdam, with Jimmy Johnstone's solitary goal in the return insufficient for Celtic.

• The clubs met again in the 1982/83 European Cup first round and this time Celtic prevailed – just. After a 2-2 draw in Glasgow, they had looked poised for elimination on away goals with the sides drawing 1-1 in Amsterdam but George McCluskey's 89th-minute strike made it 2-1 on the night and 4-3 on aggregate. Celtic first-team coach Danny McGrain played in both matches.

Match background
• Celtic are hoping to avoid a third successive European away defeat this season after losses at FC Shakhter Karagandy in the play-offs and Milan on matchday one.

• For the Scottish champions, that defeat in Milan was their 23rd in 25 fixtures on the road in the UEFA Champions League proper. The sole exceptions were a 3-2 victory at FC Spartak Moskva on matchday two last year and a 1-1 draw at FC Barcelona in 2004/05.

• Ajax drew their opening Group H home fixture 1-1 with Milan. They have won just three of their last ten matches in UEFA competition in Amsterdam, losing five.

• Ajax's home record against visitors from Scotland is W2 D0 L2. Their only other meeting with Scottish opposition came against Rangers FC in the 1996/97 group stage when they won 4-1 in Amsterdam and 1-0 at Ibrox, with Frank de Boer playing for Ajax in both matches.

• Celtic's away record against Dutch opponents is W3 D0 L2. They last visited the Netherlands three seasons ago when losing 4-0 at FC Utrecht in the 2010/11 UEFA Europa League play-offs. They had won the first leg in Glasgow 2-0, with Efraín Juárez and Giorgios Samaras scoring.

• Celtic lost the 1970 European Cup final 2-1 against a Feyenoord side including Wim Jansen, a future Ajax player and Celtic manager.

Team ties
• Frank de Boer made 17 appearances for Rangers between January and May 2004 alongside his twin brother Ronald, who was at Ibrox from 2000 to 2004. During that time he faced Lennon in two Old Firm games, both at Celtic Park, and Lennon emerged a 1-0 winner both times – in the Scottish FA Cup quarter-finals on 7 March and the Scottish Premier League on 8 May.

• De Boer scored his 13th and final international goal in the Netherlands' 6-0 rout of Scotland in a UEFA EURO 2004 qualifying play-off in Amsterdam in November 2003.

• Christian Poulsen and Lasse Schöne lost 2-1 in Glasgow with Denmark in an August 2011 friendly against a Scotland side including Scott Brown and James Forrest. In November that year, the Ajax pair helped Denmark beat Mikael Lustig's Sweden 2-0 in another friendly.

• Derk Boerrigter spent two seasons at Ajax – scoring 12 goals in 47 Eredivisie appearances – before joining Celtic this summer.

• Virgil van Dijk suffered 2-0 home and away losses against Ajax with his former club FC Groningen last season – playing against Boerrigter in both matches.

• Van Dijk and Daley Blind have played together for the Netherlands Under-21s, while Teemu Pukki and Niklas Moisander (Finland), and Lustig and Tobias Sana (Sweden) are also international team-mates.

http://www.uefa.com/uefac(...)ackground/index.html