Toby, Jan, Christian and Davinson - Ajax photo scrapbook
Mon 29 April 2019, 15:46|
Tottenham Hotspur
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.
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.
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.
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.
Destination Tottenham
