Ajax ended their 22-year wait for a Champions League semi-final appearance by shocking Juventus on Tuesday night - but one legendary Dutchman wasn’t so surprised by their success.
Cristiano Ronaldo gave Juventus the lead after 28 minutes with a record 126th goal in the competition, his ninth in seven meetings against Ajax.
But goals from Donny Van De Beek and Matthijs De Ligt gave Ajax a thoroughly deserved 3-2 aggregate success.
The Dutch side are the first team in Champions League history to make the semi-finals after surviving three qualifying rounds, and will now meet Manchester City or Tottenham in the last four.
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And Marc Overmars, the Ajax director of football, has revealed former manager Louis van Gaal predicted their European exploits.
Overmars told Dutch outlet NOS : “It's amazing that we have reached the semi-finals, no-one thought it was possible.
"A few months ago, Louis van Gaal was the only one who said it was possible, but I didn't think that was realistic.
“This is good advertising for Dutch football."
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Match-winner De Ligt, meanwhile, hailed Ajax's "unbelievable" achievement as they reached the last four at their expense of the Italian giants.
"I can't describe what kind of emotion we have at the moment," De Ligt told BT Sport 3 after Ajax had added Ronaldo's Juventus to their list of Champions League victims, having previously eliminated holders Real Madrid in the last-16.
"It's unbelievable what we achieved, we are a squad from the Netherlands and we show the world what we can do.
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"We showed it in the Bernabeu (against Madrid), we showed it against Bayern Munich (at the group stage) and now we showed it against Juventus.
"But we are never satisfied and the next game is also going to be important, we'll see what happens.
"There is so much potential in our team and we are all still young. You see us grow every game."
