Giovanni van Bronckhorst is just 90 minutes away from a place in Champions League history.
After guiding his club into their first ever Champions League group campaign the going has been tougher than imaginable.
A freaky run to the final of the Europa League helped fuel the myth that James Tavernier, John Lundstram, Borna Barisic and Ryan Kent were a step up from bang average.
Five successive defeats have destroyed that notion with one more defeat putting van Bronckhorst in the record books, replacing the 3-22 aggregate that Dinamo Zagreb achieved with zero points in 2011.
With a central defence of Leon King and James Sands, Ajax have every incentive to go for a whitewash in front of 46,000 loyal bears tonight.
Asked about going into the record books the Dutchman said:
It would be disappointing, of course. We knew the opposition in the Champions League would be a much higher level than we faced last season. You’ve seen the games we’ve played, it has been really tough.
Once we qualified against PSV I knew it would be a really tough season. I also experienced it with Feyenoord in the Champions League. It took us to the last game against Napoli to get our first three points.
It’s similar experience but you always want to play against the highest level of opponents as a player and as a club – even though that means the opposition is quite strong. It would be disappointing not to get any points.