To be honest, I don’t really understand the bewilderment about Ajax’s collapse. Hasn’t it been clear for some time that Ajax has completely lost its way after the forced departure of director Marc Overmars?
I’m writing this before the games against Olympique Marseille and Feyenoord, but even if the result is not too bad, it is unlikely that a quick recovery will follow.
My predictions have often proven to be unreliable, which is why I am becoming increasingly proud of the warning I gave Ajax supporters in a column in March of this year: not only will Ajax not become national champion this year, it will not happen next year either. .
There is now a lot of criticism about the transfer policy of the mysterious German data wonder Sven Mislintat, but it should not be forgotten that his predecessors, including former player Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, had already made a pitiful game of football. “Unbelievable,” analyst Marco van Basten called it at the time. He saw new defenders, such as Wijndal, Bassey and Sanchez, “who did not want the ball”.
I would like to add the record purchase (31 million) Steven Bergwijn, left winger: if he has played a total of two good games for Ajax, I am exaggerating.
The fact that the new coach, Maurice Steijn, chose the introverted, self-doubting Bergwijn as captain for this season does not speak in favor of his human skills.
Under Mislintat, Ajax not only got rid of a number of players too early – Tadic and Klaassen could have lasted another year – but above all they failed to find adequate replacements. They bought another left winger – Forbs – but they failed to sign a right winger. In midfield they found no successor for the useful ‘breaker’ Alvarez and as right back they kept the weak Rensch for too long.
For more than 100 million, Mislintat attracted twelve players who had proven nothing at the highest level. Even before he was suspected of a conflict of interest in one particular purchase, other strange transfers also aroused surprise.
How could Ajax give such a major purchasing power to someone who was an unknown name even to insiders in the football world? And why didn’t Ajax immediately demand that Mislintat give up ownership of his football data company if he wanted to become the club’s technical director?
Alex Kroes, currently director at AZ, will be allowed to sweep up the shards of mismanagement from March next year as the new director of Ajax. He had previously shown interest in this position, but general manager Edwin van der Sar stopped it, just as he initially prevented the arrival of Peter Bosz. I have heard a lot of good things about Kroes, he is said to be a decisive man with ‘football sense’.
What exactly is that? Van Basten has once explained that you only have to watch a football player for fifteen minutes to see what he (or she!) can do. “How does he receive the ball, does he feel comfortable with the ball?”
I would like to scout for Ajax for a while, but I fear that my editor-in-chief will shy away from possible conflicts of interest. Not me, I like to earn some extra money, just like Sven Mislintat.
A version of this article also appeared in the September 22, 2023 newspaper.