Column | Sleeping at Ajax

Sometimes I get the question why I write so little about Ajax anymore. I was Ajax fan, right? No, I hurry, I was Ajax follower, and I am still, but less dedicated than before. For the simple reason that Ajax has not been playing well enough for several seasons.

We can be short about the previous season. That was a football disaster, caused by a German Nietsnut who, unhindered by the management, injured the club for more than 100 million euros by buying at least ten worthless players. Ajax even ended up in the relegation zone.

This season the team seems to be scrambling, there is even another championship in the offing. Yet I am unable to feel any enthusiasm about that. I hardly dare to admit it, but it has happened to me several times this season that I fell asleep for the TV during an Ajax match-already in the first half. That depends on your age, will angry Ajax fans now call, but can I help Ajax play such sleep-inducing football?

I don’t blame the Italian trainer Francesco Farioli. He had no other choice. In order to reach first place with the pre -eminent, mediocre players’ material, he had to resort to boring, risk -free game with the emphasis on defense. This Ajax does not play football, it stops. The initiative is left to the opponent – and if it does take risks, Ajax strikes like a soldier from his ambush.

The supporters now still understand the strategy of Farioli, but Ajax cannot afford another season with stunning football. There will have to be more pure class in the team, but who pays the much -needed successors of often failing players such as Brobbey and Traoré?

With a nine points lead on the weakening PSV, the Ajax players thought they could become a bit more reckuty. They let their defensive style sail somewhat – against the will of Farioli? – and tried to play more dominant, at half the opponent. It was promptly punished, first by FC Utrecht, later also by Sparta. Now an undoubtedly become nervous in the last three games have to save the championship.

Ajax will succeed with some hanging and strangling, but I will not mourn if PSV still becomes champion. It has the best team, plays a positive kind of football, but this season went wrong due to laziness in the players’ group and a long -term injury from his best player, Malik Tillman.

Ajax and PSV will soon be able to represent Dutch football again at the highest level – the Champions League. Unfortunately, the gap with foreign football has become a ravine. This week I saw the semi-finals of the Champions League, Arsenal-Paris Saint-Germain and FC Barcelona-internazionale. Beautiful matches with daring, attacking game and unparalleled young offside players, such as Désiré Doué and, especially, Lamine Yamal – we saw the birth of a new Messi.

I didn’t get a chance to fall asleep, but one thing became painfully clear: a Dutch club will never win the Champions League again. Why not? Just ask the power of the capital.

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