Ajax Coaches

[Ayman]

All I know is that Ajax will win their 30th eredivisie, and reach the final of the gatorade cup. The only question is how will we fare in europe? In ten Cate's first season. Well if we make the right signings for a semi attacking midfielder (Landzaat), defensive midfielder (Davids), a right back (Ogaruro) a left back (Gusev). Then we can let the good times roll. I actually think Ronald Koemans PSV will do well in Europe and not so well in the league. So we can enjoy some good times after such a long time. :yes:

[aveslacker]

Hopefully there'll be some Ajax-jeugd products in the lineup somewhere!

[Blind3]

I like the choice of Alfons Groenendijk, even if he was at one time a player at two sides with supporters not exactly on my Christams card list; ADO and Utrecht. Most important, he is Ajacied .Second , He is an experienced AJAX system coach, as KO laid out in his post . Third, he is Ajacied with some big game experience as a player . Just leafed thru my copy of Evert Vermeer's excellent " We Are The Champions", which lists all Ajax European and World Club Cup matches from 1957-58 and to 1997-98. Found Mr. Groenendijk's name in the 91-92 Ajax sides which lined out against Rot Weiss Erfurt ( both legs,2nd round UEFA Cup) and at Torino( finale 1st leg, same competition) . :xyxthumbs:

[Kowalczyk]

Confirmed by NOS Teletekst now: Ten Cate appointed Hennie Spijkerman and Fons Groenendijk as his assistants. Official press presentation of the new technical staff in its entirety: today at the Amsterdam ArenA.

K.

[jakobg]

Didn't see this one until now: "Let's never forget that we play football to entertain the people. That will always be the number one thing that drives me."

Love it.

[jamcocteau]

Just to drag this topic back to the top of the board - there is a very interesting article on the BBC website about problems within the FC Barcelona camp. The article end with the following papragraph;

"Antic also believes that Rijkaard, who it has been suggested is being lined-up to take charge of AC Milan next season, is missing the influence of his former assistant Henk ten Cate, who was appointed Ajax coach during the summer.

Ten Cate was replaced by former Barcelona midfielder Johan Neeskens.

According to many Spanish football journalists, Ten Cate was the brain of Barcelona, while Rijkaard was the club's "face".

An advocate of fast, attacking football, Ten Cate established a superb rapport with the Barcelona players, thanks to a good sense of humour and fatherly approach.

"From what I have heard, Neeskens is not the same as Ten Cate," revealed Antic. "

Praise indeed.

Here is a link to the full article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/footbal ... 098832.stm

[Kowalczyk]

I believe it. To be quite honest I don't really rate Neeskens as a manager. I totally understand what Rijkaard is missing.

K.

[Feest]

I rate Neeskens higher than Rijkaard as a manager.

[bryan]

Johan Neeskens was shown up in the Intertoto Cup as Pat Dolan's tactical inferior.

[Feest]

Amd Frank Rijkaard was in the Copa Catalunya game(s).

[DanK]

I believe it. To be quite honest I don't really rate Neeskens as a manager. I totally understand what Rijkaard is missing.

K.

Interesting point Ko. He (Neeskens) put his hand up for the Aussie top job after Hiddink was moving on, but the FFA (Football Fed of Australia) didn't want him. I was really surprised at the time with this as he seemed to have a great report with the players. And of course (as a player) he had a great name.

Maybe the FFA saw the same thing that you do?

[dws]

Johan Neeskens was shown up in the Intertoto Cup as Pat Dolan's tactical inferior.

Cork City was halfway into its season when it eliminated a NEC side that was 4 to 5 weeks away from beginning its league campaign.

[ajaxusa]

Interesting commentary by Ernst Bouwes, critical of Ten Cate:

Blinkered by beautiful football

I must say, I agree completely (though my perspective is limited, out here in the vast wasteland that is California).

[Venezuelan Ajacied]

Very good article mate, it really make's you think about our present and future. I still have faith in Ten Cate but i must say he has not achieved anything yet too make me think "This is the guy". Sometimes i wonder how Blind would have faired with this new and improved squad.

[Kowalczyk]

I absolutely and totally disagree with this article (I think it's total bollocks, really), but I don't have the time to explain why right now...

K.

[GangstaRiB]

That particular article reflects the whole trend in the Dutch press at the moment. Anything Ten Cate says, will be explained in a negative way. Even the driving under influence by Blind is being related to Ajax, in particular to Sneijder and Perez. And this journalist does the exact same thing as the Dutch media at the moment.

[Kowalczyk]

That particular article reflects the whole trend in the Dutch press at the moment. Anything Ten Cate says, will be explained in a negative way. Even the driving under influence by Blind is being related to Ajax, in particular to Sneijder and Perez. And this journalist does the exact same thing as the Dutch media at the moment.

Exactly - and that's only one of the things I hate about it.

K.

[ajaxusa]

That particular article reflects the whole trend in the Dutch press at the moment. Anything Ten Cate says, will be explained in a negative way. Even the driving under influence by Blind is being related to Ajax, in particular to Sneijder and Perez. And this journalist does the exact same thing as the Dutch media at the moment.

I'm suspicious of any attempt to dismiss a commentary like this as being the result of conspiracy by journalists. You can't call it merely a trend if everyone is being supremely subjective and biased; you have to say there's a conscious decision's been made to run the man down. Is that really the case? I think there's merit to a criticism of Ten Cate's comments recently. His comments to referees, to the media. I have not been satisfied with his remarks.

Anything Ten Cate says, will be explained in a negative way.

And isn't it possible that the negative interpretation is still sometimes valid, even if at other times (such as the Blind thing) it's insane?

Look: I'm watching this from the most distant of perspectives; the occasional game on TV, and quotes from Ten Cate on Ajax.nl and such. I don't read the Dutch media, so I can't comment on their biases or whatever. But I can say that Bouwes' criticisms about Ten Cate's attitude, his post-match comments, mirror my own. And that's valid, and I appreciated reading an articulate expression of my own dissatisfaction.

I'm a little annoyed by Ko's dismissal of the entire article as "total bollocks". There is some merit to the criticism of Ten Cate's attitude, and I think even Ko believes that. But I'm sure he'll correct me. :-P

[GangstaRiB]

This Bouwes guy, looks as he his just copying Dutch newsreports.

ajaxusa: As you may know is that Ajax is the biggest club in Holland. So we get the most media attention. If the results are well, the critics are good. If the results are shit, the newspaper report negative news. Nothing special about that. But the past weeks are blown out of proportion. We had Sneijder and Perez, those 2 were wrong. Everybody knew that and Ajax also punished them. But the press can't get enough. Leonardo who will come to Ajax in the winter is "a perfect fit for Ajax, because he also is shown the red card this weekend". Another journalist involves the incident with Blind in the Ajax-news. As if Ajax guilty of what Blind did!

Furthermore: Ten Cate comments every game afterwards. He is a honest guy and if Ajax loses because the opponent was better, he will accept that. But he always speaks about details that went wrong during a match. For example: a referee that made a mistake, or (in the Ajax-psv match) he is saying that Ajax had deserved to win, but a lucky goal from psv made the difference.

Once again, nothing wrong with those comments. But the media is very creative in "copy/paste" and lets in only the negative comments. If Ten Cate is quoted, the media will only quote half the things that he said. And now its comming to the time where Ten Cate is annoyed and is a little irritated to speak to the press.

I hope you get the picture...

[bryan]

You'd swear Ajax is 20 points behind PSV reading that article. Ten Cate has improved Ajax exponentially over Danny Blind's performances. What are people expecting, that this squad would stroll to the title? He's getting the most out of them, that's the main thing.

[Venezuelan Ajacied]

You'd swear Ajax is 20 points behind PSV reading that article. Ten Cate has improved Ajax exponentially over Danny Blind's performances. What are people expecting, that this squad would stroll to the title? He's getting the most out of them, that's the main thing.

Ten Cate has improved Ajax exponentially over Danny Blind's performances ¿ Has he really ? That is a question i still think is unanswered. ¿Have we improved because of the coach or because of the better players that have come in ?. Blind did not have the master in defense that Jaap Stam is, Blind only had Huntelaar after the winter brake . Blind did not have a Keneth Perez or a Wesley Sneijder at its peak, you see where i`m going ? I for one had huge expectations this season, this season we had all the tools, good players in every position and yet we are still struggling in the league and in Europe.

I for one still doubt this coach, i`m not throwing the towel on him yet, their is still more than half a season to go, but right until now i remain unimpressed by what he has done so far.

[bryan]

My expectations for this season were pretty low. Don't forget, this time last year Ajax was in 13th place or something ridiculous like that.

[dws]

You'd swear Ajax is 20 points behind PSV reading that article. Ten Cate has improved Ajax exponentially over Danny Blind's performances. What are people expecting, that this squad would stroll to the title? He's getting the most out of them, that's the main thing.

Ten Cate has improved Ajax exponentially over Danny Blind's performances ¿ Has he really ? That is a question i still think is unanswered. ¿Have we improved because of the coach or because of the better players that have come in ?. Blind did not have the master in defense that Jaap Stam is, Blind only had Huntelaar after the winter brake . Blind did not have a Keneth Perez or a Wesley Sneijder at its peak, you see where i`m going ? I for one had huge expectations this season, this season we had all the tools, good players in every position and yet we are still struggling in the league and in Europe.

I for one still doubt this coach, i`m not throwing the towel on him yet, their is still more than half a season to go, but right until now i remain unimpressed by what he has done so far.

Blind had a half season 'trial period' prior to his first/only full season in charge of the club. He also had the experience of playing/coaching at Ajax for a good many years. He should have been fully aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the Ajax first team squad. His failure to demonstrate such an awareness resulted in Ajax failing miserably in the first half of last season.

Just think how bad the season could have been had Bind not been gifted Huntelaar.

[aveslacker]

You'd swear Ajax is 20 points behind PSV reading that article. Ten Cate has improved Ajax exponentially over Danny Blind's performances. What are people expecting, that this squad would stroll to the title? He's getting the most out of them, that's the main thing.

Ten Cate has improved Ajax exponentially over Danny Blind's performances ¿ Has he really ? That is a question i still think is unanswered. ¿Have we improved because of the coach or because of the better players that have come in ?. Blind did not have the master in defense that Jaap Stam is, Blind only had Huntelaar after the winter brake . Blind did not have a Keneth Perez or a Wesley Sneijder at its peak, you see where i`m going ? I for one had huge expectations this season, this season we had all the tools, good players in every position and yet we are still struggling in the league and in Europe.

I for one still doubt this coach, i`m not throwing the towel on him yet, their is still more than half a season to go, but right until now i remain unimpressed by what he has done so far.

It seems pretty clear to me that HtC has improved Ajax tremendously. Part of it is the better players. But part of it is also that he has gotten more out of players like Sneijder and Heitinga. Also, the team seems to be playing better, more attractive soccer in stretches than it ever did last year.

I think we're the victims of our own expectations here. I know I am. Ajax fans are, after all, famously fickle and self-critical. Once the team started winning this year, I felt it was like we'd all woken up from a three year long bad dream, as if, with the snapping of our fingers, Ajax would simply end up at the top of the Eredivisie.

When Ajax had a bad stretch, we should have woken up to reality: it is going to take more than a few months to get Ajax back to form. Ajax had two-three years of instability and poor decision-making by coaches (Koeman, Blind) and in the hierarchy (Arie Ferrari) alike.

Things seem to be better, in terms of play and attitude, with HtC and van Geel. But it would be foolish to think that all the ills can be cured in just a few months time.

Let's see where we are at this time next year before we give our final judgements on HtC. He's got a lot to learn, too. But my interim marks for him are high.

[Ayman]

I think Henk ten Cate has improved Ajax in terms of playing attractive football. As for results...it remains to be seen. But I agree with the critics of his post match comments, especially the ones he made after the Ajax 0-1 PSV game.