Mario Melchiot: ‘Ajax make you able to adjust to every occasion’

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Former Chelsea defender Mario Melchiot was schooled at Ajax and backs them to progress past Spurs in their Champions League semi-final

“I was at school and they called me to tell me I had to get the training ground because they wanted me to travel with the first team,” remembers Mario Melchiot. “It was quite impressive because I had never been asked before. And there I was making my way to the Champions League final. Van Gaal was a bit like that …”

It’s now 23 years since the defender who would go on to play for Chelsea, Birmingham and Wigan, travelled to Rome for the 1996 final against Juventus, watching on from the stands as Louis van Gaal’s reigning champions were beaten in a penalty shootout. Just 18, Melchiot had already been at Ajax for a decade and was called up as cover for the injured Frank de Boer despite not having made his senior debut.

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from Football | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/apr/29/mario-melchiot-ajax-makes-you-able-to-adjust

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