How Did Ajax Get This Far in the Champions League? 

Juist

@Stephen Kelly The whole cruijff revolution is actually wrongly understood by most people and media. Back in (around) 2011 Ajax was broke because of mismanagent and couldn't afford expensive players anymore so Cruijff basically took over and ordered more use of our great academy. Especially to prevent buying expensive players for squad depth. But he also said then that when Ajax did have money again (which is for a while now) they should always look to sign quality players that improve the squad in addition to the own youth players. That is what is happening now but it feels like people never picked up on that and I keep hearing stories about how the club broke with the Cruijff philosophy but that is just not true. They finally started implementing it completely.

@Stephen Kelly It's quite complicated and I don't really know where to start and what exactly happened, but I'll try to explain what I can. To anyone who knows more, please don't crucify me for any mistakes I made, but do correct them because I would also like to know what was really going on. Ajax has had a weird directional structure over the last couple of years. When Cruijff made his coup he put in place something called the 'technical heart'. This consisted of a couple of former players who would make important decisions together. At the time it consisted of Edwin van der Sar, who also became general director of the club but since he had no experience someone else was actually running the show while Van der Sar learned from him how to do this job, Frank de Boer, who was head coach at the time, Dennis Bergkamp, one of the assistant coaches, and Wim Jonk, who was head of the Youth Academy. Jonk was also technically in charge of this structure, but the other members of the technical heart could outvote him. At this time, Overmars was not yet involved. He was still working as technical director at Go Ahead Eagles, and while he would leave for Ajax in 2012, he did play a role in Erik ten Hag getting his first coaching job at Go Ahead that year. Ten Hag would guide them to promotion before leaving for Bayern Munich. Meanwhile, Overmars would join the technical heart and become head of recruitment. In 2015, Jonk had a falling out with the direction over the execution of Cruijff's plans, and he would leave Ajax over this. At this point, Bergkamp became head of the technical heart and took over de facto control of the club. Frank de Boer would also leave Ajax at the end of this season, and be replaced with Peter Bosz. Bosz did a good job as coach, bringing Ajax to the Europa League final, but not winning any accolades for the club. Bosz wanted to change things in the summer, and had a falling out with Bergkamp over this. I believe Overmars was on Bosz' side and Van der Sar on Bergkamp's side, but Bosz left not feeling full support of the club and having a lucrative offer of Borussia Dortmund in his pocket. Following Bosz leaving, there was a disagreement over who would be his successor. I believe Overmars wanted to bring in Michael Laudrup, who had experience coaching at Swansea and was a former Ajax man, but Bergkamp wanted to promote Marcel Keizer, who had won the Eerste Divisie with Young Ajax last year and knew the club from the inside, but didn't have much first team coaching experience and while he had played for Ajax, he didn't have the name Laudrup did. Since Van der Sar sided with Bergkamp again, Keizer got the job. However, the Ajax fans didn't like him and when he failed to qualify for Europe, getting kicked out by Nice from the CL and Rosenborg from the EL, his sacking was inevitable. The reason he probably wasn't sacked then is that it was known the situation was difficult with the tragedy that happened to Abdelhak Nouri that summer having had a massive impact on the players. Therefore, it took until december, when Ajax lost to FC Twente on penalties and thus was also kicked out of the KNVB Cup, before he was fired. Bergkamp, having pushed through Keizer's appointment, was also pushed aside, and the way for Overmars was cleared to take control. He brought in Erik ten Hag, who had done a good job as coach of FC Utrecht, and with Ten Hag on his side he now has a majority control of the technical heart as far as I am aware, and if it even still exists. It still almost failed, as Ajax didn't perform much better than under Keizer the second half of last season, and the fans already started rumbling, but when Ajax qualified for the CL this season his job for the near future was secured and the rest is history.

Cruijff wilde van Ajax een Barça satelliet maken, alleen maar jong inkopen/opleiden en verkopen. 0 ambitie om het hoog te schoppen. Cruijff is een legende... Maar niemand is groter dan de AFCA!

Jij begrijpt het, broer.

loool why? This is just a fluke season and they'll be back to mediocrity after getting slapped by Barcelona in the final lmaoo🤣

Which team is he managing?

_BAKZ_ salty spuds fan detected

@@_bakz_3682 they are still in ucl almost every season. Roma didbt qualify for next year

vivek hemb no, not Patrick. His son Justin followed in his footsteps as a player through the Ajax academy.

lol . was fed up by the 3 continuous videos on him

Alfredo Gago Hahahah 😂👌

tifo football was freed by the police from bielsa ...........

Don't worry. Ten Hag got influenced by Guordiola who got influenced by Bielsa. Bielsa is Everywhere. Lol😜

He lost to Ipswich... that's what happened

Im dead

Lmfao

?

hahahaha.....

hahaha bangsattt

Our previous 3 coaches are all bald and have a beard.

Good one shirey. Joris what about de boer

diego He’s bald down below! 😜

@@arnoudkulk7619 LOL! That's funny!!

He's a bosz impressionist

And then there's blind, solid as rock

Tadic and neres deserve a shout out, also tagliafico brings alot of passion.

White Pill Forum what the fuck, did you forget about van der beek

Luka Vukovic Unlike Juve who got carried by Ronaldo

@@dmohamed3588 unlike boxnaldo who got carried by juve

Your right Luka. Hvala + Volim te Tadic :)

Fully agree - i think it was a great and vital move from Overmars and vd Sar to show these guys that staying another year can really benefit them to getting to bigger clubs (it was in fact these 7 guys: André Onana, Matthijs de Ligt, Frenkie de Jong, Donny van de Beek, David Neres, Justin Kluivert en Kasper Dolberg). After Bosz left I thought we lost momentum, but i think Overmars and vd Sar really showed some great direction and willpower. They really have grown in their roles and are now leading the club to even higher peaks. Fantastic.

Silently Murdered that woulf shut those salty barca fans up

Would be nice to see a new team winning the champions league and this ajax team has the potential to stand their ground against Barcelona

@@silentlymurdered9128 Ajax winning it isn't exactly a new team. Ajax has won it 4 times, in 1971, 1972, 1973, 1995, and were runner-up in 1969 to Milan and in 1996 to Juventus. Only Real, Liverpool, Bayern, Milan and Barcelona have won it more. But in the current situation it's refreshing to see a team from outside the big 4 leagues, the last time a team from outside these leagues even got to the final was in 2005, with Porto vs Monaco, and before that it was also Ajax, in 1996.

@@jackodees1765 i was talking about the current situation 4 times by real madrid once by barcelona. So yeah ajax winning would be a rather nice change.

Kasper Kleine Tank you never know man they beat the champions real and juve with Ronaldo

I started that rumor!!

@@NphiniT State the source of your information 😅

@@b.b4229 The Atlethic ofcourse

Adam Heitner reason number two: they work bloody hard

But not good enough to beat spurs...

Although Ajax lost, they did a good job of proving that Ajax is a force to be reckoned with in the 21st century football. I always remember Ajax back in 1995 when they won the champions league and the etedevisie and the Dutch super cup in an unbeaten run for a whole year

@@Seedy-pz3gd at least Brighton is🙃

brilliant analysis

It's AJAX of course there is a Cruijff connection XD

Matt Majcan 😂😂😂😂

Ajax is Cruyff and Cruyff is Ajax. Anyone who disagrres and says Barca is in the 1st place is wrong. Please know your history

There is always a Bielsa connection in tifo's videos

The structured way that Pep coaches is from Van Gaal. Cruyff was never a man for the details in the way Van Gaal and Guardiola are. Pep says that he didn’t talk to anyone about tactics and systems more than he did with Van Gaal. Bielsa said Van Gaals Ajax team influenced him in his early years with the high press and the 3-7 system. Cruyff complains about Overmars and Van Der Sar in his autobiography for not being coached by him and so knowing little about tactics. They were coached by Van Gaal as were many others that have gone on to become good non playing staff at football clubs around Europe. Funny how people overlook these things.

Marcus Rakyat thank you mate, we had some bad years but we will be back

Hope everything went well tonight for the CL semifinals against Spurs. Final vs Liverpool in Madrid will be great game.

ajax and the Netherlands not ajax and Holland

Goeiedag daar.

This cracked me up LMAO

😂🤣

VB MUTT They might have just as talented players just not as experienced

Experienced*

and Ajax don’t need UEFA to cheat for them to win it :) (VERY salty Chelsea fan)

G...no penalty for Ballack’s Handball, Abidal wrongly sent off, Ballack should’ve been sent off in the first leg.. I agree there were many calls in favour of Barca but there were also calls in favour of Chelsea across the 2 legs..

VB MUTT you may think they’re less talented but in reality their stature is the factor you’re pinpointing. Players become legends through continued performance. Just keep that in mind. You’ll look back at these guys in 10-12 years and say what a great Ajax team they were. It’s always a hindsight perspective

Bad luck to all Ajax fans. Your team did you proud and please ignore the foul mouthed comments from some of these so called fans. Well done to all the four teams who played in this years exciting semi finals. Best wishes from England !!

Ouch.

SKG UTD Blind and Zyiech might be older

Santiago Ruival But Ziyech didn’t came from Ajax youth.

Tadic 30 De ligt 19 Schone 32 De jong 21 Huntelaar 35 Van de Beel 21 Blind 28 Mazraoui 21 Ziyech 24 Sawhatnow? And also how is PRODUCING many quality players very very lucky?

@@Markovv It's not lucky to produce quality players, what I actually meant they hv large number of quality players at the same time, and that's lucky

Its not luck, they finally have the money to keep a team together (for atleast 1 year). If Ajax could keep all their players from the last 15 years instead of selling them. They would have been a powerhouse.

Johan Cruijff , dream final and tribute to the football vision of Cruijff . What a final it will be

@@afca8823 rinus michels to johan cruyff : TOTAL FOOTBALL.

Wish he was still alive

U r right he's the key of Ajax

Chinmay Wagh this Ajax side would win 100%

@@mack2287 no it won't loool. This ajax team is the most overrated team in history, can't wait for them to get slapped up by Barcelona lmaoo

@@_bakz_3682 If you beat Real Madrid and Juventus you're not overrated bro.

i've seen @_BAKZ_ commenting shit about Ajax all the time. You are either a Juventus, Real Madrid, Feyenoord or PSV supporter. Stop trying to convince people that Ajax is overrated or lucky. And just accept the fact that Ajax is phenomenal. They have showed the football world multiple times.

@@jari9015 Could be a salty Man Utd 'fan' too. Wouldn't surprise me.

Bad luck to all Ajax fans. Your team did you proud and please ignore the foul mouthed comments from some of these so called fans. Well done to all the four teams who played in this years exciting semi finals. Best wishes from England !!

Look I hope barca win all the coming finals but let us win please we would die for the UCL trophy... Lol

Tottenham for example gets 100 000 000$ from TV rights alone, Ajax can only get that kind of money by selling 2 best players. Money is still important and Ajax doesn't have as much money

Thanks Cole

Tifo Football thank you so much for the shout-out! Of course! I feel so honored right now haha.

95-96 ajax says hi.

He's on vacation

It's Ajax, they will NEVER go away

Ajax is one of the most historic clubs in football history. They will never ever go down.

Monaco? LOL. How long have you watched football? Check *Ajax 1995*. They basically won Champions League with "kids".

@@marcsugi yes im aware of that squad. in terms of young talent there's also the class of 92 from Manchester United, Borrusia Dortmund's 12/13. what i mean is young players will be tempted/lured by lucrative offers or the chance to play with established giants of the game, i. e. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Juventus etc. im not comparing their playing style, im comparing the potential outcome see how borrusia's squad got torn apart: nuri sahin to real madrid, kagawa to Manchester United, Lewandowski, Hummels & Gotze to bayern, Monaco: Mbbape to PSG, Lemar to Atletico Madrid, Bakayoko to Chelsea, Mendy & Bernado Silva to Manchester City, Fabinho to Liverpool. Kluivert already went to roma, de jong is going to Barcelona. what's next? de ligt? van de beek? loyalty is barely existent in today's football, gone were the totti, carragher and gerrard. im just saying

@@marcsugi btw, i googled, after winning the champions league: seedorf left for Sampdoria in 95, reiziger & edgar davids went to AC Milan in 96, Kanu to Inter Milan in 96, Marc Overmars to Arsenal in 97, Kluivert to AC Milan in 97

Yeah you'll say that after the first leg won't you.

@@samvitjatia951 uh I'd delete your comment if I where you

I believe Liverpool deserves to win after that comeback.

Love Back. ❌❌❌

Tobias Langvad2 nah, seen the matches against FC Groningen for example?

Longer than 1.5 years, but that’s when he consolidated his hold on things.

the dutch didn't exactly invent pressing or forechecking in football, it was done in the late 60's by dinamo kiev for example under maslov. the dutch made it famous though, first at Ajax under Michels and at Feyenoord under happel and then in the national team. the word "gegenpressing" is just german for "counter pressing", meaning you immediately start pressing when you're caught in possession. this is commonly associated with klopp at dortmund, which is why the german word is popular now, but also with guardiola and pochettino.

@@artur297 No! It was invented in Ghana!!

artur297 hungary played it as well in the Puskas age as well as Austria before 1960.

They drew with Bayern in both legs

Isp.. Ipsitch.. Is... How do you say it?

Good point, that.

@@Tifo Great job guys. The best football content on RU-vid. Enjoy every video in this channel (y)

I prefer to see Benni McCarthy because he's doing the most with the rejects of the league. Pitso gets the best players and new one's ever years

@@pike101000 so he's basically like pep Guardiola then?