Archive November 30, 2025

Ajax have criticized the “utterly outrageous” fireworks display that led to the abandonment of their Dutch league game against Groningen.

Within five minutes of the start of the match, after fireworks and flares were ignited behind one of the goals, Referee Bas Nijhuis ordered the players to leave the Johan Cruyff Arena.

More fireworks followed 45 minutes later, prompting Nijhuis to formally end the Eredivisie game.

The Amsterdam club stated in a statement that “Ajax considers what happened in the stadium this evening to be utterly outrageous.”

“We apologize to everyone who has experienced any pain.” Both the safety of the spectators and the players are in danger. That is unacceptable.

We firmly discredit this behavior. The stadium should not be the location of fireworks.

The game will be played behind closed doors until 14:30 CET (13:30 GMT), and it will return on Tuesday.

The Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) stated that it fully comprehends “the” disappointment of the majority of the well-intentioned Ajax supporters and the ambulant FC Groningen supporters.

“Those who do this are not there for football or the game.” They said in a statement that it saddens those who actually support their club.

The Eredivisie stated that the unacceptable circumstances surrounding Sunday night’s game would lead to a “disciplinary investigation.”

According to Ajax, supporters in the affected area of the stadium were searched before entering with sniffer dogs.

The Ajax statement continued, “We will, of course, review the camera footage to identify the perpetrators and will also look into other ways to find out who is at fault.”

We will take appropriate measures if this leads to the identification of offenders.

Fans who are found to have emitted fireworks will also be subject to an 18- to 60-month suspension and a fine of £400 (450 euros).

Ajax and Groningen have not faced this kind of fate in the past.

Due to the relegated hosts’ fans throwing fireworks on the pitch twice, Ajax’s Eredivisie game in May 2023 was postponed after just nine minutes.

Reece James stole the show in the middle of the pitch, where Moises Caicedo and Declan Rice were supposed to play midfield, but it was Moises Caicedo and Declan Rice did the opposite.

The Chelsea captain has been forced into midfield by Romeo Lavia’s persistent injury issues, which makes him typically a right-back. In the 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge, James and Caicedo sat next to each other.

Chelsea won the opening match 2-0, but the momentum lost when Caicedo was sent off for a late lunge on Mikel Merino in the 38th minute.

Alejandro Garnacho was introduced at half-time by Maresca, Fernandez slipping further along with James.

James crossed for Joao Pedro’s close-range effort moments after the restart. Trevoh Chalobah looped a header over David Raya from a corner to start the scoring.

Even though Chelsea was a man down, Merino scored with a far post header 11 minutes later while James kept the game alive and equaled the Premier League leaders with a man advantage through his physicality in midfield.

Maresca, who added that the 25-year-old has a history of injury issues, would need to think about using him against Leeds in midweek, said: “Reece was fantastic, he was] top, very good.

“We have a game on Wednesday,” the manager said. We need to control him, manage his situation, and control his situation in some small ways. But he did a great job tonight.

Chelsea thinks James has overcome the persistent hamstring issues that have plagued his career in recent years, and that the change is not accidental.

The key is Maresca’s disciplined selection process, performance director Bryce Cavanagh and medical director Craig Roberts, both of whom have led the club’s medical department.

To keep players healthy long-term, they have combined to implement stricter load management and closer player monitoring.

James was asked by BBC Sport how he managed to stay injury-free for more than a year last month: “Many people behind the scenes are helping me – they know who they are. I have a close relationship with someone at the club. He has played a significant role in keeping me on the pitch.

Chelsea’s analysis team also plays a crucial role, monitoring player data to facilitate high-intensity football while reducing the risk of injury. After going from having one of the worst injuries in the Premier League to having one of the best, the team was viewed as a success last year at Stamford Bridge.

Like Wesley Fofana and Romeo Lavia, James was only allowed to play one game per week last year. Without any need to lower their physical output on the pitch, James and Fofana have both been healthy and cleared to play two or three games this year.

Maresca claimed James would likely take a step too far by starting a fourth game in a row at Leeds.

He has already made a significant impact this week, playing for the full 90 minutes against Arsenal, for the 82-minutes against Barcelona in the 3-0 win over Barcelona, and for the first half of the Burnley victory with a 2-0 victory over the weekend.

The Chelsea captain also made his 200th appearance against Nottingham Forest last month, marking his first appearance in more than two years, with only one international break in between.

After Chelsea and Arsenal drew 1-1, James was questioned by Sky Sports about whether his team had made a statement. His understated response read, “I believe everyone can see our goals and objectives.” Today made a significant statement, in my opinion. There are many advantages to taking, even if we wanted to win.

That composed authority reflects the evolution of Chelsea captain James. Mauricio Pochettino gave James the armband after Cesar Azpilicueta left in 2023. However, the Italian asserted his desire for more in Enzo Maresca’s time and even confided it to James in a one-on-one meeting.

Maresca has been impressed by the response since then, both publicly and privately.

Without a lot of words, James is a quiet, introverted man who avoids the pitch. He instead uses thoughtfulness to lead.

He frequently leads by example, leaning on vice-captain Fernandez as the “aggressive leader,” and he encourages players to sit down for quiet words, arranges team meals during difficult times, and uses vice-captain Fernandez as what one source refers to as the “aggressive leader.”

However, James has also been seen urging Estevao Willian’s teenage winger to do more aggressive things this season in the September game against Brighton, where he claims he helped him get used to English football.

A small gesture that strengthens unity that was lacking during Chelsea’s rebuilding has also been made, where the entire squad gathers in the center circle before leaving the pitch together.

The captain of Chelsea looks for inspiration beyond the field. Lewis Hamilton, the driver, and Siya Kolisi, the rugby union skipper of South Africa, have become close friends.

England’s World Cup year is in good hands with that personal development. James was first elevated to a new level at Stamford Bridge by former England manager Thomas Tuchel, who won the Champions League in 2021.

James hasn’t played for England since 2022, but Tuchel recalled him in March. Following disappointment that the 2022 World Cup was canceled due to injury and the non-selection of Euro 2024, it was a significant moment.

After Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won a dramatic Qatar Grand Prix thanks to a significant McLaren strategy error, Formula 1 will face its first final-race championship showdown between more than two drivers in 15 years.

Lando Norris, a McLaren driver, said it was “of course not our greatest day,” which is understated given how poorly his team managed to salvage a victory for the Briton.

Norris ‘ championship lead has been cut by Verstappen to 12 points heading to Abu Dhabi next weekend, with the other McLaren driver, Oscar Piastri, a further four points behind.

After the race, Piastri was left speechless as he digested the fact that Verstappen had won the race while his championship position had changed to third.

The Australian claimed that it was “pretty painful.”

Norris is still the favourite to win the title – the points margin means that he just needs to finish third to win the championship in Abu Dhabi on Sunday even if Verstappen wins the race.

Qatar, however, demonstrates that anything can happen.

And it’s worthwhile to recall the last time there were so many drivers in contention for the final race.

In 2010, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso headed to Abu Dhabi with leads of eight and 15 points over Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel.

It was a second painful weekend in succession for McLaren, after they lost second and fourth places for Norris and Piastri with a double disqualification in Las Vegas.

Verstappen was compared to the villain in a horror film that just keeps coming back to life before the Qatar race weekend by McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.

Ironically, Lusail housed McLaren’s own horror film.

They handed Verstappen a win that will only increase the pressure on their drivers at a final race weekend which is a mouth-watering prospect for neutrals, and a nerve-wracking one for Norris and McLaren.

The obvious choice was to pit for fresh tyres when the safety car arrived on lap seven following a collision between Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg. Every other team did it because it was so obvious.

The reason it was such a slam-dunk decision – for everyone bar McLaren – was that tyre supplier Pirelli had mandated a 25-lap maximum for any set of tyres because of the risk of failures around the demanding corners and sharp kerbs of the Qatar track.

When exactly 50 laps were remaining, the safety car arrived. So anyone who stopped at the time had two 25-lap stints.

Given that stopping under a safety car saves nine seconds of race time over a pit stop under green-flag conditions, and that this would have been a one-stop race had it not been for Pirelli’s prescriptions, a pit stop was a no-brainer.

Verstappen immediately clocked it.

When they called me in, he said, “I had to look and remember that we were entering lap seven.” “So I was, like, OK, now we can go to the end (with one more stop).

When Norris and his engineer, Will Joseph, were finished speaking, they immediately exchanged the same query. Norris wanted to know, if he was racing Piastri, why they did not stop when his team-mate stayed out?

Later in the race, Joseph responded that it eliminated their strategic flexibility.

The issue was that they would unavoidably lose track position around a track where overtaking was all but impossible. They were going to emerge from their final pit stops with at least one car, and probably both, behind Verstappen.

Andrea Stella, the team’s manager, claimed that the team had not pitted because they worried that others would decide to stay away.

At a track where overtaking was all but impossible, McLaren would have conceded a leading track position.

The problem with that reasoning was that, as the race proved, anyone who stayed out was ultimately going to lose that position to someone who had stopped. Therefore, it made no sense to stay out.

McLaren did not attempt to defend the call. And Stella was his usual calm, reasoned self.

He said, “We’ll have to consider some factors.” For instance, whether there was a certain bias in our thinking that led us as a group to believe that not all cars would have pitted against one another.

Rivals tried to be completely fair to both drivers, but they also saw something else might be happening based on how McLaren have handled things this season.

To win the race, they had to stop under the safety car. In that circumstance, Piastri would undoubtedly stop because he had a top priority as the leader.

It was more complicated, however, for Norris. If he stopped at the same time, McLaren would have had to do a so-called “double-stack” stop, when they service one car and then the other.

However, doing that adds an additional five seconds to the car’s second.

Verstappen was already in second place at the beginning, Norris had already fallen behind. But this would have meant he would also have dropped behind the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli – who was less than two seconds behind Norris at the time – and probably also Williams ‘ Carlos Sainz, who was 3.5secs adrift of the McLaren.

Stella insisted that the main reason for stopping both cars wasn’t the fact that it was an “extra consideration.”

Some in the pit lane discovered a plot here. The belief among a decent number of F1 insiders is that McLaren are favouring Norris this year, but not wanting to admit it publicly.

This theory is based on races like Hungary, where Norris was given the option to run an alternative strategy after a poor first lap, which led to him finishing fifth and ultimately defeating Piastri, who spent the majority of the race ahead of him.

And then Italy, where a pit-stop issue caused Norris to fall behind Piastri after the team flipped the natural pit-stop order for controversical reasons, and McLaren gave Piastri the order to place him back.

For F1 as a sport, if not for McLaren, this was pretty much the perfect outcome.

This is the first title-deciding contest between two drivers since 2010. The excitement will match the intense pressure.

Norris was keen to play it all down on Sunday when asked how he would approach the final race and what could be his first F1 championship title.

He said, “It’s the same as every weekend.” They try to beat me, and I try to beat them. It’s nothing different. I simply want to go to bed.

After a successful weekend that had resulted in him losing what had at the end of August appeared to be a 34-point lead, Piastri was trying to put his disappointment at losing a win in perspective.

“It’s certainly not a catastrophe”, he said. We chose the wrong course today. That is unmistakable, but the world hasn’t ended.

” So, obviously, it hurts at the moment, but with time things will get better. There have been many challenging situations, both this year and during the previous seasons, and I believe you have always learned to overcome them.

“But how you handle it all depends. So I’m sure we’ll get through it. But it does hurt, of course, at the moment.

Verstappen is simply reveling in having the opportunity to win a title that he has spent the majority of his year believing is beyond his reach while pursuing a fifth consecutive crown.

“I know that I’m 12 points down”, he said. “I enter there with only positive energy,” I say. I make every effort possible.

” But at the same time, if I don’t win it, I still know that I had an amazing season. It’s therefore not really important. It relieves a lot of the pressure. I’m just out there having a good time like I had today. “

The hand-wringing will take place at McLaren, which is where it will take place. Their boss is aware of the situation.

Stella has been here before. He cited two instances where a driver who came in third in this sort of a situation ended up winning. He participated in both.

In 2007, Stella was race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari when the Finn overhauled a massive points gap in the final two races to beat McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Alonso.

When Ferrari messed up in Abu Dhabi in 2010, he was working on Alonso.

Starting in 2002, Stella and Michael Schumacher began a five-game winning streak, but only after the German suffered painful losses in 1997, 1998, and 1999.

” Racing is tough, “Stella said”. Although racing may teach you difficult lessons, champions’ history dates back to this. Michael Schumacher and I collaborated. We won several titles together.

“We all think about the titles right now, but after Vegas, I was thinking about how much pain Michael had to go through before starting his Ferrari career.

“Formula 1’s history is only here.” This is the true nature of racing.

We are disappointed, but once we begin the review, we will become even more determined to adapt, learn from our mistakes, and work together more effectively.