Ajax and Dutch defender Ruud Kroll praised Napoli this season as similar to Ajax, where Johan Cruyff played in the past. 

Italian media ‘Area Napoli’ reported on the 27th (Korean time) that Ruud Kroll compared Luciano Spalletti’s Napoli to Johann Cruyff’s Ajax.

Kroll, who also played for Napoli as a player, is a defender who led the golden age of Ajax and the Dutch national team in the 1970s. Kroll played alongside Cruyff for Ajax and the Dutch national team. 

With the two players, Ajax won the European Cup three times, the predecessor of the UEFA Champions League, and also achieved a treble in the 1971/72 season. The Dutch national team finished runners-up at the 1974 World Cup in West Germany.

Ajax, which was dominated by Dutch players including Kroll, used Total Soccer, one of the best tactics in modern football, under coach Linus Michels. 

Unlike tactics at the time when the roles of defenders and strikers were greatly separated, Total Soccer was a tactic in which the attackers pressed forward and the defenders participated in the attack. Total Soccer, which achieved outstanding results with Ajax in the golden age, had a great influence on the soccer of world-class players such as Arrigo Sacchi, Pep Guardiola, and Thomas Tuchel. 

Kroll said of Napoli in an interview, “People refer to them compared to Napoli in the Diego Maradona era, but we have to refer to the current Napoli, which can do well with 10 players this season. Even if they play with 9, nothing will change. “Because each of them knows their role well,” he praised Napoli’s performance. 

As Kroll mentioned, Napoli’s defender Mario Hui was sent off in the 22nd minute of the second half against Empoli, but they maintained a stable performance until the end of the game so that their numerical inferiority was not felt at all. Napoli maintained a two-point lead after the sending off and won 2-0. 

When asked about the comparison between Napoli and Ajax when Kroll was playing this season, he said: “It’s definitely similar. With Cruyff, we didn’t play like catenaccio. We could change the way we play. He created a tactic,” he admitted, saying that Napoli are similar to Ajax, who revolutionized football this season with total soccer. 메이저사이트

He continued, “Napoli not only Victor Osimen and Hvitsa Kvarachhelia, but also Piotr Gielinski, Irving Lozano, Kim Min-jae, and Alex Meret showed their skill by growing as a group.” He stressed that he led 

Like Kroll’s praise, Napoli is showing good performance in Serie A this season, with all players in the team playing evenly under the leadership of Spalletti. 

In particular, the existing starting lineup and newly recruited Kim Min-jae and Krabartshelia showed off perfect balance from the beginning of the season, showing off an excellent air-defense balance. are being cited 

Attention is focusing on whether Napoli soccer, which has been compared to Total Soccer, the revolution in the soccer world, will be able to create Napoli’s golden age with trophies comparable to Ajax’s golden age this season.