GangstaRiB schreef:It will be the moment of thruth, but I don't think that Ajax will be ranked as a C-category club. Remember AC Milan who had a few years of Uefa-Cup years and lost to unknown clubs in south Siberia. It all can change very quickely.
Yes, of
course it can change very quickly. But if Ajax f*ck it up tonight we will be a C-category club
until we prove otherwise. If you get 'relegated' to the C-category you can get 'promoted' to the B and A categories again. But when you're in the C-category, you're in the C-category - and we've almost reached the point of getting 'relegated' from the B-category, if you ask me.
A club's European status for the moment (= the official UEFA ranking) is based on the past five or six seasons:
1999-2000: UEFA, 3rd round elimination (by Real Mallorca)
2000-2001: UEFA, 2nd round elimination (by Lausanne Sports... X'C )
2001-2002: UEFA, 2nd round elimination (by FC Copenhagen... X'C )
2002-2003: CL, quarter final (survived two groups stages; excellent!)
2003-2004: CL, first round elimination (4 defeats in 6 games)
2004-2005: CL, first round elimination (4 defeats in 6 games), followed by immediate UEFA Cup elimination
Conclusion: if it wasn't for that fairly recent peak in 2002-2003, we would already have been a C-category club.
Which is a f*cking disgrace and an example of scandalous, deeply embarrassing underachievement.
Ajax are a financially healthy club with an ultra-modern stadium, 45,000 season ticket holders, a fan club of more than 70,000 members, a youth academy that is generally regarded as one of the best in the world and an annual budget of 65 million euros. If you look at the organisation of the club we are a
big club that should easily brush clubs such as Lausanne, Copenhagen, Maccabi and (with all due respect) Brøndby aside, any time of the day. That should be as 'logical' as Ajax's defeats to Juventus or AC Milan. We are not as rich as the top three or four clubs from Italy, Spain, England and Germany, but our natural position in European football should be
just behind them: in the top of the B-category. We should be the 'biggest of the small ones' -
easily.
Of
course you can have a sh*t year every once in a while, but that's not how I would describe the European list of 'honors' above. In recent history an occasional
good season has been the exception that proves the rule - not the other way round. Which means that there is something seriously wrong. Ajax have everything to be in the top of the B-category, but for six years straight (with one exception) we have completely, utterly and totally failed to deliver.
Based on the 2002-2003 season we can claim that we're still holding on to the tow bar of the truck that carries the 'elite' of European football. We've already fallen off the tailboard and our legs are now dragging over the asphalt, but we're holding on, grinding our teeth. Tonight is the night of the decision: can we pull ourselves up and climb back onto the tailboard, or will we have to let go and stay behind?
We've been C-category for five out of the last six seasons and top drawer for one season. On average: relegation zone of the B-category. Are those five crap seasons 'incidents'...? Hmm, that's a pretty long string of 'incidents' then, innit? But okay: if we can still win a head-to-head confrontation with Brøndby we stay in the B-category. If we can't? That would make six seasons of European failure out of the last
seven! In that case it will start to sound a tiny little bit ridiculous if we continue to refer to ourselves as a 'big club'. In that case we'll have to seriously re-consider our self-image as AFC Ajax.
I, for one, definitely will. If we f*ck up tonight we've officially become a
small, modest, 'nothing special' type of football club in Europe.
Period!
K.