Ajax are a complete mess. The Dutch club are preparing for their crucial Europa League trip to Brighton against the backdrop of their biggest crisis in decades. Without a manager after sacking Maurice Steijn on Monday, the club are second bottom and in the relegation zone of the Eredivisie, and are currently on their longest winless since the introduction of Dutch professional football in 1954.
Could Ajax really be relegated? Probably not, but things are getting worse, not better. A month ago, even with the club in the bottom half of the table, you could get 2,500-1 odds on them dropping out of the top flight. Now, those odds are 150-1. Club legend Rafael van der Vaart said this week that Ajax “have to think like a relegation candidate at the moment. That’s very sad, but it’s true. You are no longer Ajax. You have to assume that you are not better than your opponent, because they simply do not have the qualities for that.”
On Wednesday 27 September, the Guardian published this piece on how Ajax had already descended into chaos. That evening they lost De Klassieker 4-0: a behind-closed-doors league match against Feyenoord. The game had been suspended a few days earlier after ultras threw fireworks onto the pitch to halt the match, following Feyenoord taking a 3-0 lead in the first half. A riot ensued outside the stadium, with supporters vandalising their own stadium, the Amsterdam Arena, and police using tear gas and charging at fans on horseback to disperse the crowds outside. Steijn admitted it was “a jet black day” in the club’s history.
It was around that time the club sacked their sporting director, Sven Mislintat (formerly of Stuttgart, Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal), and hired Louis van Gaal as a ‘consultant’ to steady the ship. They have lost every league game since. Sunday’s 4-3 defeat at fellow strugglers Utrecht leaves them 22 points behind traditional rivals PSV, who Ajax must travel to on Sunday after their game at Brighton. It is not the ideal first week for assistant coach Hedwiges Maduro to take the reins.
The Europa League is a competition that can at least provide some relief and gives Ajax something to aim for other than domestic survival. After two draws in Europe, away at AEK Athens and at home to Marseille (with 10 men), Ajax sit third in Group B, level with Thursday’s opponents, Brighton.
On paper, Ajax’s is not a terrible squad. There are been some notable departures in recent months – including Mohammed Kudus and Edson Álvarez to West Ham, Jurrien Timber to Arsenal, Calvin Bassey to Fulham – but more than €100m was spent reinforcing a squad that finished third last season, including the €12m signing of Chuba Akpom from Middlesbrough and around a €30m outlay on Croatia international defenders Josip Sutalo and Borna Sosa. Argentina goalkeeper Gerónimo Rulli is a World Cup winner, although he has barely played for Ajax this season due to injury, while captain and talisman Steven Bergwijn, who broke the Eredivisie transfer record when he moved back to the Netherlands from Tottenham last summer for €31m, has scored just once (a penalty) since the opening day of the season. He was confronted by fans after the defeat at Utrecht.
What now? The hunt for Steijn’s replacement is already under way, but it is a complicated hierarchy outside the dressing room. Van Gaal’s exact remit is unknown, while Ajax have even been linked with bringing back Marc Overmars, the former winger turned director who oversaw a period of huge success – including that run to the Champions League semi-final in 2019 – but left the club in 2022 after a scandal that involved inappropriate messages to female Ajax employees.
Manchester United’s current assistant manager, Mitchell van der Gaag, is one of the leading managerial candidates to return to the club where he worked under Erik ten Hag. Van der Gaag is expected to stay in England, but there is an obvious draw to be Ajax’s saviour this season. It will be difficult to do any worse.
