Ajax vs Rangers LIVE: Champions League result, final score and reaction as Ajax notch comfortable win
Ajax 4-0 Rangers: Gers lose heavily in their first Champions League match in 12 years
Ajax built a commanding early lead before overwhelming Rangers 4-0 in Champions League Group A at the Johan Cruyff Arena.
Edson Alvarez, Steven Berghuis and Mohammed Kudus scored in a one-sided first half and Steven Bergwijn added the fourth 10 minutes from time to complete the rout.
It was a dominant display from a new-look Ajax, who sold several key players over the summer, and lost head coach Erik ten Hag to Manchester United, but still proved far too strong for the Scottish side - last season’s Europa League runners-up.
Borna Barisic did have a goal disallowed for the Gers after an offside in the build-up but they were largely outclassed.
Relive all the action as Ajax beat Rangers in the Champions League:
Rangers’ star man
Excluding qualifiers, Rangers’ James Tavernier has scored seven goals in his last nine appearances in major European competition.
He was the Ibrox club’s top scorer in their Europa League campaign last season.
"As a squad, win, draw, lose, we all look back on how we can improve. This was the same.” he said after defeat to Celtic at the weekend.
"We openly speak, and the staff and the boss put the points across. It’s something we always go through no matter what the scoreline and we know it’s something we need to put right."
Van Bronckhorst’s Champions League record
During his spell as Feyenoord manager, Giovanni van Bronckhorst won just two of his 10 meetings with Ajax in all competitions - two draws, six defeats - losing all four of his visits to the Johan Cruyff Arena.
Van Bronckhorst lost five of his six games Champions League games with Feyenoord in 2017/18, the exception being a 2-1 win against Napoli.
Kvaratskhelia a ‘huge threat'
Former Napoli and Liverpool boss Rafa Benítez has identified 21-year-old Georgian forward Khvicha Kvaratskhelia as a "huge threat" to the Reds’ hopes of making a winning start to their Group A campaign.
Writing in his column for The Times, Benítez says he has been told by friends in Italy that the youngster is currently the "best player" in Serie A.
The forward has four goals and one assist in five Serie A appearances this season.
Alisson on Arthur
Arthur Melo may make his Champions League debut for Liverpool tonight and all the talk coming from the Reds’ camp is that he is set to play a role against Napoli this evening.
Alisson Becker, Liverpool’s number one goalkeeper, spoke about having Arthur in the squad saying: “He is a good friend of mine. I played with him for the national team: we won the Copa América back in 2019.
“He brings even more quality to our team and he likes to play the way we play. I’m sure with the team helping him he will adapt really quickly.”
Celtic and Rangers set to provide sorely needed emotional centre to Champions League group stage
Over the last few days, Ange Postecoglou has been drilling his players in a typically expansive gameplan, but it has all come with a new electricity. Tuesday night won’t just be a case of Celtic playing their normal game and refusing to change for anybody. It will instead be a night when the unique atmosphere fits with the usual approach, amplifying it, and they will just go with the mood of adventure.
You only have to walk around Glasgow this week to get a sense of what the Champions League is supposed to be about. The city that staged one of the old European Cup’s first truly mythical finals, when Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 at Hampden Park in 1960, now awaits the return of the 14-time champions with a rare excitement. Across the city, the Rangers players have been playing the Champions League theme on their phones as they head to Ajax, but that’s really all in anticipation of it booming around Ibrox for the visit of Napoli next Tuesday.
This is what the competition is supposed to feel like. One of the Champions League’s first cities, rather appropriately, is this group stage’s emotional centre.
Celtic and Rangers set to provide emotional centre to Champions League group stage
Some of the competition’s greatest moments throughout history have come from clubs outside the elite, but stupefying predictability has overtaken the group phase in recent years
Rangers’ Champions League record
Rangers have won just 19% of their Champions League games (12/62) which is the second lowest win rate of any side to have played at least 50 games - Anderlecht are bottom at just 17%.
This is their first appearance since the 2010/11 campaign.
They have progressed past the group stage in just one of their 10 previous attempts (2005/06). However, they’re unbeaten in their first group game in each of their last six campaigns with four wins and two draws.
Ajax vs Rangers
Rangers have won their last two games in the Netherlands, including a 1-0 win at PSV to qualify for the group stage.
They had won just two of their previous nine before that with two draws and five defeats.
Ajax won all six of Champions League group stage matches last term, having been knocked out at this stage in the two campaigns prior to that.
They netted 20 goals in their group games last season, their most ever.
Jurgen Klopp hopes for fourth time lucky as Liverpool travel to Napoli
Jurgen Klopp hopes it will be fourth time lucky as the Liverpool manager looks to finally win at Napoli when last season’s Champions League finalists kick-off their quest for continental glory on Wednesday.
It is just over three months since the Reds suffered a gutting 1-0 defeat in the final to Real Madrid on a night marred by chaotic scenes outside the Stade de France.
Liverpool have been drawn alongside Ajax, Rangers and Napoli this time around and get Group A under way at the cavernous Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Wednesday evening against the latter.
But Klopp has not enjoyed the best of times on his previous visits to Naples, having lost 2-1 with Borussia Dortmund in 2013 before losing 1-0 with the Reds in 2018 and 2-0 the following year.
Jurgen Klopp hopes for fourth time lucky as Liverpool travel to Napoli
The Reds get Group A under way at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Wednesday evening
Napoli vs Liverpool
Liverpool won all six away games in the Champions League last season. A seventh consecutive victory on the road in Naples would set a new club record in European competition.
Ajax vs Rangers
Ajax have won all four of their previous meetings with Rangers, winning both legs of the European Super Cup in January 1973, and both group stage meetings in the 1996/97 Champions League.
Rangers’ four defeats from four against Ajax is their worst 100% losing record in all European competition. Besiktas (6/6) are the only team that Ajax have a better 100% winning record against.
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