Plenty to prove for Ajax and Inter

AFC Ajax and FC Internazionale Milano have a shared history that dates back to the 1971/72 European Champion Clubs' Cup final in Rotterdam which the Dutch team won 2-0 with a pair of Johan Cruyff goals. The stakes will not be so high when they face each other again in the first knockout round of the UEFA Champions League but both teams will be fiercely determined to reach the quarter-finals.

Recent slump
• Recent matches involving Italian opposition do not suggest that the first-leg hosts will be expecting an easy ride. Ajax have lost four successive games to teams from that country and all by the same 1-0 scoreline, coming off worse against Juventus in last season's UEFA Champions League group stage and again when they were paired in the same group as AC Milan the previous year.

Ajax improving
• The four-time European Cup winners failed to make it past the group stage on those two occasions but the current campaign, which got off to an inauspicious start before steadily gaining in momentum, offers them the chance to claim a berth among the last eight of the UEFA Champions League for the fifth time.

• A draw away to AC Sparta Praha, achieved through Wesley Sneijder's equaliser in added time, and a 2-1 home defeat by Arsenal FC in the opening two fixtures in Group B did not point to a prolonged stay among Europe's élite in their eighth UEFA Champions League campaign.

• But three successive wins followed by a commendable draw away to Arsenal, which prevented the hosts claiming a 100 per cent record, helped Danny Blind's team take second place with a seven-point advantage over FC Thun. Two players scored three times – Yannis Anastasiou and Nigel de Jong.

Inter riding high
• Inter also suffered just a single defeat as they finished on top of Group H with a six-point lead over Rangers FC. FC Porto got the better of them on Matchday 3 but otherwise Robert Mancini's team, who will stage the second leg on 14 March, showed consistent form with Adriano making a real impact in the final two matches. He scored a hat-trick against FC Artmedia and then opened the scoring on Matchday 6 away to Rangers.

Last year's run
• It was Porto who provided the opposition for Inter in the first knockout round a year ago. A 1-1 draw at the Estádio do Dragão was followed by a 3-1 win in Milan, a game which also featured an Adriano hat-trick. The quarter-finals then brought Inter up against their city rivals in an ill-fated tie in which AC Milan won through having been awarded the abandoned second leg 3-0.

History kind to Ajax
• A year after beating Inter in the 1972 European Cup final, Ajax handed out the same punishment to Juventus to make it a hat-trick of triumphs in the competition in successive seasons. However, they also lost 4-1 to Milan in the 1968/69 final.

• In 1994/95, they finally got revenge on Milan in Vienna to lift their one and only UEFA Champions League crown but the following season missed out on a repeat performance when Juventus won the penalty shoot-out that followed a 1-1 draw in the final in Rome. Ajax also won the 1991/92 UEFA Cup on away goals at the expense of Torino Calcio, after a 2-2 aggregate draw.

Inter record
• The Nerazzurri, competing in their fifth UEFA Champions League season, have generally had the upper hand against Dutch opposition in two-legged affairs and they will fondly recall their last meeting with the Amsterdam club.

Last trip to Amsterdam
• In the 2002/03 UEFA Champions League first group stage, they punctured Ajax's hopes, winning 1-0 at home and then 2-1 away with Hernán Crespo scoring all three goals. That was the only occasion in which they have tasted success in the Netherlands – the six previous games ending with three draws and three defeats.