29 Aug 2007: SK Slavia Praha - Ajax

[orange goblin]

This is the right mentality to rebuilt. I am with you on this one, although the "Uefa-Cup-step" had to be done last year. We are late.

[Monkey Tonk]

About the coaching situation.

Look at the most successful Ajax coaches. Michels, Cruijff, van Gaal. Not counting Kovacs, because that team didn't need a coach.

What do they have in common? They were all Ajax strikers. Van Gaal had the bad luck to be behind Cruijff in the picking order, so he moved on to Sparta. (Cruijff and van Gaal also dropped towards midfield in the second part of their playing career; where both showed an excellent capacity to read the field).

All others, whether former players or career coaches, have failed at coaching Ajax. * So, it looks as if one could set a very simple requirement for a successful Ajax coach. And the person that meets this criteria is, of course, Marco van Basten.

I don't like what van Basten is doing with the Dutch national team, but I hope that when he comes home he will convert back to the Ajax house style.


* The one person who came closest was Beenhakker, but I will never forget the game against Twente when Ajax was losing at home under his direction. Suddenly, Cruijff had come down from the stands and began shouting instructions from the sideline. Immediately, the game turned into Ajax's favor and was easily won. F*cking magician.

[Cmon1983]

Another problem I see now. Which player would want to come to Amsterdam when they can't play CL football? This was always part of the appeal to join Ajax even though they were in a smaller league, but now? Whats the point?

I didn't see the game so can't comment on HTC game plan, but I am highly doubtful of his buying this season. It's dodgy to say the least.

Lets at least win the league this year. Please.

Well , look at Bayern München, they are in UEFA cup this season, and they just bought Toni, Klose, Altintop... I know, they will be champions this year (probably) , and it's not a guarantee for Ajax, but C'mon, even in football manager , i managed to buy mascherano for ajax (after 2 CL-wins:) )... okay I'm not in a happy mood either, we'll see, who will sign for us. I hope that we could strenghten our squad today or tomorrow..
But it seems like that our future doesn't belong to just the youth players, we need quality players to sign for us, which will be hard to get..

[SPL]

The point about a salary cap is a good one and the fact that 4 teams from EPL Italy and Spain are allowed in just makes those teams richer.

We were doing ok back in 2003/04 but IMO things went wrong on 31 August 2004 when they sold Zlatan on the cheap and did not replace him.
(He was prepared to spend another season with us.)

2004/05 was a crap season with no real striker and VDVaart losing his way.
We all hated Koeman and he went. Danny Blind was not up to the job but did bring us CL footy.In 2005/6 he coached a team knowing that over half of them were going to walk out on Bosmans.

HTC is another Blind ie a good background coach but not up to bringing this club back to what is expected.

2 Augusts in a row we have been disgraced by defeats against poor
teams in CL.
We are all moaning about that last day when we failed to win the title by 1 goal but in truth AZ should have buried Excelsior and won the title.

Turning to this summer. Babel was made an offer that no 20 year old would turn down ie £40000 per week and a signing on fee of £2m . we end up with about £ 9m for a young striker who does not score goals regularly!

As for Wes, no one can complain about him as he has given us 4/5 good years and £19M was too good to turn down.

Apart from Suarez the rest of the signings on paper do not inspire.Luque has hardly played for 2 years and Colin and Delorge have not been that great in English Championship. Urzaiz is nearly 36. What are we doing signing those last 3 named players!!! Kennedy looks reasonable and Rommendahl has spent the last 3 years looking crap at Charlton.

Next summer, KJH, Heitinga ,Urby,Stam and Davids will go.Maduro will also go probably for nothing as we do not want to give him another contract.
Gabri will likely move along with some of HTC's signings.

It seems we will have to put up with him this season and hope we can bring in someone with quality next season ie Van Gaal should have taken over from Koeman.

These are my thoughts and I am sure they will be shot down by some of
you.

[Philippe]

It's up, peeps.

http://www.ajax-usa.com/matches/m07-08/ ... rague.html

K.

nice report

[Ayman]

The question is...is the manager really the problem..answer yes and no...HTC's tactics and signings are dodgy...at the same time looking back at the Blind years...we were better off then, rather then under HTC...atleast Blind Brought us CL football. Having said that.....everyone wanted R.Koeman out..rightly so but....atleast he brought us on the brink of greatness in the CL in 2002/03....no Ajax coach has done that since Van Gaal. Do you all see my point? I dont know who should be our coach to be honest....my worry is if its Van Basten....what if things dont work out? What if it gets worse? because it seems the football club is heading this way.

P.S. I noticed some of the fans having a dig at Delorge....thats strange...they were praising him against Heerenveen...I never liked this guy in the first place, neither him or Colin.

[The Purple Cow]

There are so many things wrong with this Ajax team that it's difficult to know where to start. However I would like to highlight the attitude or rather lack of attitude of Ajax's home grown players. There's no passion or fire from Ajax's players anymore, the Japanese hqave a word for it Ki Ai. (OK, two words).

I've become quite friendly with the father of a kid who is currently in the Ajax youth system, in fact he's one of the stars in his age group. The father was telling me that his son has completly fallen out of love with football, he sees Ajax and football only as a source of stress and angst in his life. Hid dad has brought him to train at my kids school in an effort to remind his son that football can be fun, in the hope that he can re-ignite his son's interest or love for football. His son has come from a situation where he loved football and actually played at an Ajax level above his age, to now where his performance is suffering and he probably wouldn't lose any sleep of Ajax threw him out.

The Ajax academy is a dog-eat-dog world he tells me, where kids have to fight for individual success, because no matter how well you've done before you may be slung out at the end of the year. This emphasis on individual success comes at the cost of team spirit and love for football. This he (and I) believes is the reason why Ajax graduates show so little interest in their team's success because they have been taught from an early age that individual success is key.

***

The defence is a shambles isn't it?

As a former goalkeeper myself I just don't like Stekelenburg's style. I prefer pro-active goalkeeper's who control the defence. Stekkers is a reactive keeper, which would be ok if he wasn't frequently so slow to react. He has the mobility of a wardrobe, and was partly at fault for the first goal last night, just as he was for Heerenveen's goal on Sunday.

Jurgen Colin just isn't good enough even for this Ajax, what was HtC thinking?

Jaap Stam, this is starting to look like it might be a season too far for the old boy.

I like Vermaelen but he's still a work in progress, last night he had a relatively poor game.

Urby Emanuelson is going backwards. It can happen even to the best of young players so no need to panic, but right now he's a shadow of the player he was a year ago. Get well soon, Urby. Still prefer you as a midfielder.

[bryan]

It's a part of the football culture here. I play football in Amsterdam and nobody on the pitch seems to take a risk. You make a mistake and your team mates will bitch at you for five minutes, so nobody takes a risk. I was so pissed off at running my arse off and then getting blamed for fouling somebody who had been left unmarked by somebody else that I quit football here. I couldn't enjoy it anymore. As a rightback I'd storm up the wing (to catcalls of "rustig!" and "wat doe je nou!") and give a mighty cross which would lead to a goal. Then I'd make one foul throw (after taking 10 good ones) and the whole team would shout at me. If that's what's happening at the Ajax youth then no wonder the kids don't want to play anymore.

I thought I was an oddball in my team but it seems that every other foreigner I know in Amsterdam who has played football says exactly the same thing.

Football is about creativity, team work, camaraderie, agression and skill. Passing the ball about aimlessly is what you do when you are 1-0 up and you want to run the clock down.

[bryan]

He has the mobility of a wardrobe, and was partly at fault for the first goal last night, just as he was for Heerenveen's goal on Sunday.

Was away on Sunday, just saw the Heerenveen goal on Youtube.

Can't say you can blame him directly for the goal, but my god, he didn't even make an attempt to save it did he.

[gordonvandekamp]

I've been reading Ajax USA and these forums for a few years now, and figured it's time to post some thoughts about yesterday.

Sorry if this has been covered, I haven't seen it.

Am I the only one who thinks one of the glaring problems is the back line and defending in the box? I thought this was the biggest issue last year, and if anything it's gotten worse this year.

Jaap is about the only reliable defender and I thought this became clear when Grygera was injured last year. I just don't think the defense is strong enough around the box. Especially with Heitinga and Emmanuelson supporting the attack. But it's bad from set pieces too.

Slavia's first goal came on the 6th touch from a corner. How about clearing the ball in one of those first 5? I think it's going to be more of the same without any proper defensive re-enforcements. I don't think an English Championship benchwarmer is going to cut it either.

Here's last season's Eredivisie goal totals:

Code: Selecteer alles

        Against  For
PSV     25       75
AZ      31       83
Ajax    35       84
Roda JC 36       47
Twente  37       67

Ajax is barely third in goals against, just beating out Roda JC and Twente. There was no problem scoring goals, most in the league. Like I said, I think it's going to be more of the same.

It was a problem last year, and almost all the new transfers seem to be done to reinforce the attack and make up for the loss of Babel and Sneijder. That's a valid objective seeing how important they were, but I can't see how nothing was done to improve the defense, especially with losing Grygera. If anything it's a step backwards in defense.


UEFA CUP!

[gordonvandekamp]

Another thing while I'm thinking of it. I don't buy the excuse that it is a lack of player motivation that's responsible for the recent poor European results. Maybe so for some of the old-timers, but I can't see it for the younger players, even those here for a temporary stay and looking to move to a bigger club in Spain/England/Italy/Germany.

If anything they have more motivation since they know they're getting looked at and need to perform if they want to impress a bigger club. They aren't going to slack off as that won't get them noticed. It's the biggest stage for most of them and the best way to get noticed.

Now on the other hand, if they don't have the talent to begin with, that's another story.

[aveslacker]

Welcome to the boards, Gordon. Sorry you have to be joining us at such a crappy time.

Love your avatar, though. Did you photoshop Davids' glasses onto KJH?

[gordonvandekamp]

Welcome to the boards, Gordon. Sorry you have to be joining us at such a crappy time.

Love your avatar, though. Did you photoshop Davids' glasses onto KJH?

I wish I could take credit for it, but it's someone else's work, I simply found it on the internets.

[bluedaddy19]

That would be the UEFA. Think about it. Ajax is the only legendary club in Europe that plays in a small competition. All the others, -Real, Bayern, AC Milan, Liverpool, etc- play in the big competitions. The UEFA has favored the big competitions in two ways.

ermmm bayern are in UEFA this year and liverpool have been in it half of the last 6 years

[ZoefdeHaas]

I dont mind the UEFA cup, but if we had the chance for CL with a shit team in our way but fail, thats what I mind.

[Philippe]

Am I the only one who thinks one of the glaring problems is the back line and defending in the box? I thought this was the biggest issue last year, and if anything it's gotten worse this year.

A fashionable but untrue conclusion : if the defense is weak, the attack is even worse. During the Prague games, both home and away, it took more than 10 obvious goals chances to score only once ! No team can afford it.

Another thing : we have no playmaker.

So, the defense, maybe, but the rest ....

[aveslacker]

Welcome to the boards, Gordon. Sorry you have to be joining us at such a crappy time.

Love your avatar, though. Did you photoshop Davids' glasses onto KJH?

I wish I could take credit for it, but it's someone else's work, I simply found it on the internets.

Well, it cracks me up either way.

Also: fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

[Monkey Tonk]

That would be the UEFA. Think about it. Ajax is the only legendary club in Europe that plays in a small competition. All the others, -Real, Bayern, AC Milan, Liverpool, etc- play in the big competitions. The UEFA has favored the big competitions in two ways.

ermmm bayern are in UEFA this year and liverpool have been in it half of the last 6 years

The point is that those big competitions have three or four representatives in the CL. That means that there are three or four times more teams in those leagues than in the old days with enough (CL) money to buy our best players.

But if you want to argue that Liverpool or Bayern are in the same boat as Ajax, I think we are going to disagree. Historically we are their equal, or better. Not anymore. And not because we haven't tried. I'm pretty sure Ajax has thought longer and harder about every aspect of the club than most competitors. That's 'Ajax' as well. With a salary cap you'll see us right back with the best teams in the world. Without out, no chance.

It can be done, by the way. The NFL is a prime example. You may not like the sport, but there is no way that one team is going to dominate the league by simply outspending the others. Isn't it amazing that the UEFA hasn't shown any interest in creating an equal playing field?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsVkV3AZqqI

[bryan]

at the same time looking back at the Blind years...we were better off then, rather then under HTC...

No. HTC finished within one goal of the title. Danny Blind finished a thousand million points off the pace, scraping into 4th place.

[aveslacker]

It can be done, by the way. The NFL is a prime example. You may not like the sport, but there is no way that one team is going to dominate the league by simply outspending the others. Isn't it amazing that the UEFA hasn't shown any interest in creating an equal playing field?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsVkV3AZqqI

I've said it before: the NFL is a great example for sporting leagues to follow. They have a short schedule so that there is no player burnout, they have labor harmony, the quality of play is high virtually across the board, the league is professionally run, attendance is the highest of any domestic league in the worldand every team is rich.

People may not like the sport of American football and that is their prerogative, but that doesn't mean that UEFA can't learn something from the NFL.

In the long run, such a system, if it could be fairly implemented (a big if) could be very good for UEFA, and would certainly help a club like Ajax, which can always produce quality players cheaply.