SC Heerenveen deeply impressed by Ajax signing: 'On the pitch you experience it differently'

Ajax threw away a 2-0 lead against sc Heerenveen on Sunday (2-2). The Amsterdam side played convincingly in the first half-hour and had goalkeeper Marc ter Stegen to thank in part, with the Barcelona loanee spraying fine passes and keeping the tempo high. Heerenveen coach Robin Veldman and captain Maas Willemsen were impressed by him.

Ajax needed 33 minutes on Sunday to move 2-0 ahead. An own goal from Bernt Klaverboer and a wonderful strike by Abdellah Ouazane put the home side in control, but Jacob Trenskow dragged Heerenveen back into it on the stroke of half-time with a tremendous rocket. In the 82nd minute, Maxence Rivera scored the equaliser.

"We didn't have it right at the start in terms of our pressing," Willemsen begins with ESPN. "We changed that after 20, 25 minutes. Then it got a lot better. We approached the one-against-one situations differently. We gave Ajax far too much time on the ball."

He then turned to Ter Stegen. "They played out of our pressure very easily. I have to say the keeper is pretty handy on the ball as well," he says, referring to Ter Stegen. "He can play. I already knew that, of course, but on the pitch you experience it differently." Heerenveen eventually took a deserved point. "I think it had to do with the changes."

Veldman also had plenty of praise for Ter Stegen, who not only acted as a playmaker but also produced a number of fine saves. "He's there to keep goal, right? I think he saves a very good free-kick, even if it isn't right in the corner, but it was still struck pretty well. The one-on-one with Luca (Oyen, ed.)..."

More than that, though, Veldman pointed to his influence in possession. "But especially in forcing us to make choices in the pressing, how long he could delay and how easily he plays a ball into the free space... We certainly didn't have an answer to that in the first twenty minutes. Later he also played a few balls over the press, or balls where we could jump with the full-backs."

"We simply had to react better to that," Veldman observed as he watched his side show resilience and make an excellent start to the season with Heerenveen. They beat FC Twente in the opening round (1-0), and now they have taken a point at the ArenA. "Always chest out," concludes the former Ajax youth coach with a laugh.