Hedwiges Maduro, assistant coach of Ajax, knows what it is like to start the holidays with a bad feeling because of an embarrassing defeat. When he was still a player for the club, he even had to undergo punishment training on Christmas Day. “The punishment exercise took place behind closed doors, but it was crystal clear that nothing was involved on Monday morning,” wrote Het Parool at the time. The team also received a fine from the club, which was transferred to charity.
That was in 2006, under coach Henk ten Cate, after the Amsterdam club had lost to Vitesse in a home match (2-4). Substitute Maduro played so poorly that Ten Cate would have wanted to substitute him again, he said, if a fellow player had not already received a red card. Ajax had “a mentality problem”, the coach thought, the players lacked “mental toughness”. Ajax won the cup that season and finished second in the competition, with the same number of points as champion PSV (75).
Times have changed. With a deficit of 23 points to PSV, the championship has long been out of sight. Ajax was knocked out of the cup tournament on Thursday evening in the last match before the winter break by the Utrecht amateur club USV Hercules, tenth in the Third Division (fourth level of the Netherlands). An absolute low point in club history, where the defeat against Vitesse under Ten Cate pales in comparison, because nothing like this had ever happened to Ajax. According to a club spokesperson, the atmosphere was “very bad” at the De Toekomst training complex, where the selection had to report on Friday morning.
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Fleet review
Internally, they have known for some time that the revival disguised how weak and unbalanced the selection is, assistant coach Michael Valkanis said in so many words to ESPN afterwards on Thursday evening. “If you look at us today, you get confirmation of the vulnerabilities of the team. Even when we started getting results in the competition, we already knew that. Now is the right time to change things to take steps forward.”
The big question, of course, is what those things are. In the absence of a technical director, commissioner Danny Blind and Louis van Gaal (advisor to the supervisory board) have made an analysis of the player group in consultation with the scouting and technical staff in recent months. Sometimes out of necessity, mainly based on old images and impressions from training: of the twelve newcomers who came to Ajax last summer under the director of football affairs Sven Mislintat, who was dismissed in September, only goalkeeper Diant Ramaj, Benjamin Tahirovic and Josip Sutalo are permanent fixtures. Which does not mean that they are uncontroversial.
It is not known exactly what the fleet review revealed. It is certain that the shortcomings, in addition to football technical aspects, are also characterological according to those involved. Or as Van ‘t Schip previously put it: “There are not many captains in this team.” It is indicative of this that during the cup disgrace on Thursday evening, it was not the relatively experienced Croatian Sutalo, but the seventeen-year-old Jorrel Hato who wore the captain’s armband (Steven Bergwijn and Steven Berghuis were absent). This was previously the case against AEK Athens.
It is therefore obvious that Ajax will try to rent or buy one or two experienced players with leadership qualities during the winter break. The midfield in particular, usually with Tahirovic, Kenneth Taylor and Kristian Hlynsson, is often overrun. At the same time, the club will want to sell some expensive summer purchases again. The longer they sit on the bench, the smaller the chance that Ajax will (somewhat) recoup its investment. According to the French striker Georges Mikautadze Football International possibly return to FC Metz, which sold him to Ajax for 16 million euros last summer.
At best, it is more repair work than a strategic plan to put together a squad that can compete with PSV and Feyenoord. The timing is unfavorable. The supply of players is small during the winter transfer period, and clubs prefer not to lose valuable talent in the middle of the season. Moreover, Ajax hardly offers any sporting prospects, certainly not in the short term. After all, apart from the Conference League, the club is more or less finished. Even financially, caution is required, despite an equity of 236 million euros. Because it may take a few seasons before Ajax plays the Champions League again, while the salary house is large and the market value of the selection is questionable.
Not fit
In the first week of January, the Ajax selection will meet in Cádiz, southern Spain, to prepare for the second half of the season. The training camp will have to contribute to restoring confidence, but especially to the fitness of the players. Because there is a lot to be gained there, as data from SciSports, requested by ESPN, showed at the end of November. Since the last season in which the club last became champion (under coach Erik ten Hag, 2021-2022), Ajax players have steadily walked fewer kilometers. And more importantly: they made fewer and fewer meters at high intensity. The explanation for this is a matter of conjecture, especially because when Steijn was appointed last spring it was already clear that the selection had serious physical shortcomings.
Van ‘t Schip wanted to “draw a line”, “look ahead” and “bring back the fun”, he said when he started at the end of October, because the selection had suffered “a blow after a blow”. It looks like he can start over in that regard upon returning from Australia.