He doesn't have a thread on this board. Now is as good a time as any, because I just found this YouTube clip of Ajax's goals in the 94/95 Champions League. Litmanen ran the show. He had it all: defence splitting passes, crosses, quick thinking assists at short range, headed goals, beating players with ease, the ability to break the net with both the left and right foot...

The greatest Ajax player ever.

Is he the first footballer to retire from club football in order to concentrate on his international career?

I watched the clip that Bryan posted, showing the Ajax destruction of Bayern in the 1995 CL semi. Football at it's very best, and Litmanen quite brilliant - unmarkable, I'd say.

A wonderful footballer.

what a preposterously brilliant team ajax were at that time.

i was happy to be there when litmanen scored his best goal for liverpool, a 25 yard shot in off the post to beat spurs 1-0 at anfield.

he was clearly the best player on the pitch that day. shortly afterwards, houllier said he hadn't got the legs for the premiership and froze him out.

.


(not about jl as such ...)

How lovely are Ajax's colours!? And why are they so out of it now? And will they ever get back in it?


.

Was 94-95 when they beat Real Madrid at the Bernebeu 2-0, but should have had about 8 goals?

Inca,

Is this the match you were referring to? I believe it was the CL group stage in '95-'96. It was also the match that sealed my Ajax fandom. I was in school in A'dam at the time and, being the front runner that I am, got caught up in all the excitement during my first exposure to European club football.

That was right about the time when you could start to find at least a little bit of football on TV here in the States. Not 100 percent certain but I think the Ajax-Milan final was the first to be shown here on ESPN.

Litmanen was great but what a team: Finidi, Rijkaard, Danny Blind, the deBoers, and the youngsters Overmars, Kanu, Seedorf, Davids, Kluivert, Reiziger. Some team.

(I'm currently trying to sign Litmanen for Wolves on Football Manager 08.)

Back in the day he played for Lahden Reipas, one half of Lahti's great footballing rivalry. His club was founded in Vyborg and, like Ilves Kissat in Tampere, moved wholesale to lahti when the peace treaty necessitated the evacuation of karelia.

The other club, FC Kuusysi, beat Zenit St Petersburg and FC Sarajevo in the 1986 European Cup before going out in the Quarter Finals to the eventual winners Steaua Bucharest. Kuusysi and Reipas merged to become FC Lahti, which gets smaller crowds than either club got before the merger.

As always in these situations, the junior clubs kept their identity and are the ones that coach the youth of Lahti. This gives them a 'presence' in thousands of Lahti families that FC Lahti cannot hope to achieve, and means that if they ever managed to resurrect themselves they'd have a ready-made fan base. At present Kuusysi's juniors set up a new club called 'city stars' so that they didn't have to stop playing at 18, and they are now in the third tier. Reipas have no senior side.

(Mighty: don't!)

Why not? He's only 36. Could definitely do a job as an 'impact' substitute when Karl Henry runs out of steam, I reckon.

Without wanting to derail this thread into epic geekery, he just isn't very good.

Anyway, mid-90s Ajax, eh? I still get twinges of nostalgia for a good Ajax side, but I can't romanticise them too much seeing as they're just the Dutch equivalent of a BRC. I'd probably feel more positively disposed if they'd stayed at De Meer, instead of that horrible box they play in now.

Saying Litmanen is Ajax's best ever player would be.. controversial, surely?

No, I think he was. He could defend as well. And at his peak he had pace as well.

If he hadn't gotten all those injuries he could have become the greatest player, ever, anywhere.

I'm probably still going to buy him, for the reason Alex Ferguson bought Laurent Blanc despite the fact he could barely move.

Litmanen was great but what a team: Finidi, Rijkaard, Danny Blind, the deBoers, and the youngsters Overmars, Kanu, Seedorf, Davids, Kluivert, Reiziger. Some team.

It was an amazing team.

Six of them ended up at Barcelona at various times afterwards. All flopped, with the arguable exception of Reiziger.

In fact, it was seven -- I forgot the great Bogarde . . .

Litmanen is the greatest footballer I have ever seen with my own eyes, in 40 years of watching the game. Without his depressive illness he would have become the greatest footballer of all time, IMHO.

Most young Ajax fans would have him as their best Ajacied ever, some older ones would go for Cruijff, Keyzer or Swaart, I suspect.

**

I missed that 0 -2 game against Real Madrid because I was in Detroit for some reason, but I read press reports, and the Spanish press were full of praise for Ajax, "We have seen the football of the 21st century" was one headline I remember.

The game was also notable for a 22m Litmanen free-kick that went into the goal and came back out off a stantion, - the referee gave no goal.