Ajax appears to have got itself out of financial dire straights after beating Dynamo Kyiv 2-1 last night in Amsterdam’s Arena stadium. Last week's first leg match in Ukraine ended in a 1-all draw, making it 3-2 on aggregate.
The second leg win firmly places the Dutch team in the group phase of the lucrative Champions League, which could lead to an extra turnover of 25 million euros. Last year, the club’s books were more than 21 million euros in the red. It has been more than four years since the four times European Champions took part in the Champions League.
The fans went mad, but they shouldn’t forget that Kiev dominated the first half of the match. Luckily for Ajax, Maarten Stekelenburg stopped Oleg Gusiev scoring in the 34th minute and five minutes later he saved a goal by Andry Yarmolenko.
Ajax cashed in on its first chance with Luis Suarez scoring from a difficult position at the end of the first half. After the break, Ajax were back in form and dominated the game just as they had done in the last 45 minutes in Kiev. Suarez almost scored in the 52nd minute, but Kiev’s goalkeeper Koval managed to knock the ball out of the top corner.
In the 75th minute the Amsterdam team could heave a sigh of relief as Mounir El Hamdaoui scored the second goal of the game. Dynamo Kyiv looked like it could come back five minutes before time scoring a penalty after Vertonghen floored substitute Milos Ninkovic in the penalty area.
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