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Transfermarkt insight
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Few clubs in Europe’s top leagues can say they’re having as poor a start to the season as Ajax. Although the Amsterdam giants may sit fourth in the Eredivisie table, their league campaign has already gone up in smoke, with the club electing to sack head coach John Heitinga last week after just five wins from the first 11 league matches of the season. When coupled with four consecutive defeats in the Champions League, it means the once proud champions of Dutch football now sit 11 points off top spot in the league and dead last in the Champions League group. However, this isn’t an entirely new problem for Ajax.
No club in the Netherlands has won the Eredivisie more times than Ajax and until very recently it seemed as though no one else would. Between 2017 and 2022, the Amsterdam club won four back-to-back league titles, while reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League and the final of the Europa League. However, things quickly took a turn for the worst after that and since then Ajax have finished third, fifth and then second in the league and await the appointment of their fifth full-time head coach in a little over three years. So what’s gone so wrong for one of European football’s most illustrious football clubs? To find out more, we sat down with Transfermarkt’s Eredivisie expert Kevin Lux. Here’s what he had to say about the rise and fall of Dutch football’s biggest club.
2017-2022: A golden era for Ajax
It's a complex story, starting with Johan Cruyff in 2010. He organised a so-called “silk revolution” in the club, getting rid of the board and directors at the time and replacing them with people who've had a playing career in football. He wanted a kind of Bayern Munich approach, where former players used their experience to manage the club. Edgar Davids took a place on the board, while Edwin van der Sar, Dennis Bergkamp, Wim Jonk and Marc Overmars took on managing roles. It didn't go smoothly at first, with Davids, Jonk and Bergkamp leaving, but under the rule of Overmars and Van der Sar, Ajax managed to get back to the top of European football. The main focus was once again shifted from buying to using homegrown talent, like Matthijs De Ligt, Donny Van de Beek and Frenkie De Jong.
It resulted in a Europa League final in 2017 and they only just missed the Champions League final two years later. They owned the Dutch league and were on their way to creating a gap too big for rivals PSV and Feyenoord to bridge. Pundits in Holland were afraid that Ajax would become the Bayern of the Netherlands as the only club able to poach talents away from their biggest rivals, like Bayern often does with players at Borussia Dortmund. Overmars was the financial genius behind it all; he has a talent for selling high and paying less for great players and it made Ajax by far the richest club in Holland.
The fall of Overmars
But then Overmars decided to send some inappropriate pictures of himself to female colleagues within the club. It led to a big scandal, forcing Overmars to leave the club due to a suspension, leaving Van der Sar alone to manage the club, looking for a replacement. Several technical directors came to the club, but none of them matched the quality of Overmars. And then came Sven Mislintat. He used all the money Ajax had earned over the past years to buy a bunch of players that added nothing to the team and only blocked passage for young talent to the first team.
In only four months, he used all the transfer funds on players that turned out to be a total waste of money. He also gave them very expensive contracts, making them almost impossible to sell as well. With Borna Sosa and Gastón Ávila, he signed two left backs even though Ajax already had Owen Wijndal (bought a year before for €10m). All three rarely played and lost their spot to Daley Blind and later Jorrel Hato. Georges Mikautadze was an expensive bust as well, as was the loan deal for Lucas Ocampos. Benjamin Tahirović, Sivert Mannsverk, Chuba Akpom and Diant Ramaj will also be some pub quiz answers for all the wrong reasons in the near future. The only signing Mislintat did that worked relatively well was Josip Sutalo, and even he isn’t doing very well for the club right now. Mislintat was sacked after a few months, leaving Ajax again without a technical director. Gerry Hamstra and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar took over, but they were stuck with all the expensive contracts and empty bank account that Mislintat had left behind. Huntelaar got sick and left the club.
An attempt to rebuild
Last summer, Alex Kroes took over. He was the ideal man to lead Ajax back to the top, but also struggled with what he inherited from Mislintat’s tenure. His arrival also created some controversy. AZ didn't want to let him go and Ajax and Kroes had to wait for the competition clause in his AZ contract to expire before he could take on his new job, leaving him with less room to actually start the way he wanted. The last transfer window was the first in which he could actually work the way he wanted.
Kroes managed to get rid of most of the expensive contracts within the club, but because they didn't bring in any real money, he couldn't do much in the market. The players he bought seemed okay, but haven't performed yet. His choice of coach (Heitinga) also wasn’t the ideal option in the situation where Ajax is currently in. Now, Heitinga is sacked and Kroes has put his own position in jeopardy as well, leaving Ajax once again without a technical director. Overmars is rumoured to return, but the women he harassed still work within the club, so that is difficult. Besides that, he developed a heart condition over the past few years, so he won't be the old Overmars he once was.
What about Ten Hag?
In my opinion, Erik Ten Hag was there at the right moment. The club was stable, had some great talents in the youth system and bought some great players. It might have made Ten Hag seem like a better manager than he really was. He has some qualities for sure and even with great players you still have to make a great team and play with a good tactic and he did that. He is a good tactician and a good trainer that can make players better, but I think he has to work at a stable club and both Manchester United and Bayer Leverkusen weren't at the time.
After he left, the new manager had to fill big shoes. Alfred Schreuder was a Ten Hag type of trainer, but he came at the wrong time. Ajax had sold their best players, were kind of rebuilding and had to deal with the Overmars situation. After him, Maurice Steijn came in and was overmatched at a club like Ajax. Francesco Farioli did well, but never played with the “Ajax DNA” and Heitinga stepped in as an inexperienced manager and was outmatched as well.
