Vojvodina Lead Then Collapse as Ajax Win 4-1 in Novi Sad
Vojvodina equalized through Sukacev, then fell apart against the four-time European champions. The first leg of the second qualifying round looks all but decided before Amsterdam.
- Vojvodina lost 1-4 to Ajax at Karadjordje in the first leg of the Conference League second qualifying round.
- Ajax led inside the 3rd minute through Klaassen, before Sukacev headed the equalizer in the 28th.
- Berghuis, Gloh and teenager Abdala gave the visitors a commanding lead going into the return.
- The second leg is in Amsterdam, where the hosts arrive with virtually no chance of progress.
Three minutes. That is all it took for Karadjordje to go from a roaring north stand to complete silence. Rosic saved the first effort, but the ball dropped in front of Klaassen, and the experienced Dutchman did not miss. Vojvodina’s goalkeeper fished the ball out of the net and looked up at the terraces, as if searching for an explanation for something that had happened too fast to process.
And then, briefly, it looked like Novi Sad might have its night. In the 28th minute Lukas Baros delivered from the flank, Petar Sukacev rose above everyone and headed home for 1-1. The stadium exploded. It felt like Vojvodina had the wind at its back, and that the four-time European champions, at least this young version of Ajax, could be caught off guard.
The illusion lasted exactly ten minutes.
How did the match turn?
Ajax responded coldly, the way teams raised on the big stage do. Steven Berghuis restored the lead in the 38th minute and sent Vojvodina into the break trailing at an uncomfortable 1-2. It was not a goal that killed the game, but it was a goal that put things back in order, a reminder of who the favorite really was.
The second half was a contest the hosts could not win. In the 51st minute Oskar Gloh made it 1-3, and honestly, that was the story finished. Vojvodina kept trying and kept running, but the gap in quality and composure was simply too large. The hosts lost duels in midfield, while Ajax executed every set piece and every attack with a rhythm that cannot be improvised.
The final blow came in stoppage time. Mohamed Abdala, a teenager brought on to log minutes, made it 1-4 in the 90+3. Fittingly, the goal that sealed the night came from the youngest player on the pitch, while the more experienced home players watched their chance of progress fade in front of their own supporters.
What comes next for Vojvodina?
The return leg is in Amsterdam, and the 1-4 scoreline reads like a verdict. To overturn it, Vojvodina would need something rarely seen in modern football, a three-goal away win against a side of this level without conceding. Realistically, that is a scenario for daydreams, not for the pitch.
What lingers is the question of approach. Vojvodina had its moment, it had the equalizer and it had the stadium behind it. The problem was not heart, but the fact that after 1-1 the team opened up too much and paid for it three times over. Against sides like Ajax, one open minute costs as much as an entire defeat.
The hosts now go into the return with nothing to lose, because no one believes in them. Sometimes that produces freer football and a moment or two worth remembering, but the result was effectively settled here, at Karadjordje. Vojvodina’s European season, by all indications, ends in the second qualifying round.
Did Vojvodina lose this match to the class of the opponent, or to its own naivety after equalizing?
