THERE has always been something a little bit different about Ajax Amsterdam. Those red and white jerseys signify an altered way of looking at football, a Johan Cruyff-inspired worldview which has often been imitated elsewhere but never quite re-captured.
Almost quarter of a century now since SFA president Ernie Walker first contacted Rinus Michels about trying to transplant his concept of total football up here, Scotland joins the rest of the continent this morning in scrambling around again looking for pointers about best practice.
Tuesday night’s 4-1 second leg last-16 win at the Santiago Bernabeu – which ended three years of Real Madrid dominance of the Champions League – shows that once again the Ajax model has produced a team worthy of its illustrious forbears.
In addition to that Cruyff-inspired three-year period of dominance during the early 70s, there was that remarkable Champions League win in 1995, inspired by the likes of Patrick Kluivert, Edwin van der Sar, Jari Litmanen and the De Boer brothers.
Okay, so this is a Real Madrid side which appears rather ageing and directionless after its unprecedented stint at the top of Europe. They will probably sacrifice their manager Santiago Solari in fairly short order and are already shopping for a fresh basket of Galacticos such as Eden Hazard or Neymar.
But the real story of Tuesday night– and a fortnight ago when they were unfortunate to go in trailing 2-1 in the first leg – was Ajax.
Can you imagine a team like Celtic, or perhaps even a Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts or Hibs, recording a win like that at the last-16 stage of the Champions League?
Let’s use Celtic as an example, as right now, as seven-time Scottish champions, they are the only one of our teams who get to taste Europe’s major club competition on a regular basis. Is it fair to draw a comparison between their exploits and what Ajax achieved on Tuesday?
Well, even in the impoverished backdrop of Scottish football, you can’t say Celtic don’t have the money. They can boast a bigger turnover than Ajax have to offer; and spend more cash on a weekly basis on their playing staff. When it comes to attracting players, they certainly have a prestigious continental history to look back on.
In their defence, there are a couple of structural elements which they don’t have. There is no Celtic B team in the lower divisions of Scottish football to blood their young players, unlike Jong Ajax – where so many of these young Dutch talents can be parked for a season or so to develop quietly in the background.
Stringent work permit regulations in Great Britain are another consistent bugbear of the Parkhead hierarchy. Yet while Ajax can tap into the Dutch diaspora, most of the young talents in this team are actually born in the Netherlands.
David Neres, a 22-year-old Brazilian plucked from Sao Paolo for around £10m, and Argentina international Nicolas Tagliafico, a £4m arrival from Independiente, are the exceptions which prove the rule.
Neither can Celtic rely on such robust competition at the top of their domestic league, with the Eredivisie currently ranked 11th in Europe as compared to the Ladbrokes Premiership in 20th position.
While the Parkhead side currently home in on their eighth successive league title, Ajax sit only second behind PSV and remarkably haven’t won the Dutch league since 2013-14. As witnessed by their run to the Europa League final in 2017, their ambitions often seem to be bigger than that.
Foremost of them at all times – and certainly since Cruyff returned to the club as technical advisor in 2011 – is developing technically and tactically excellent young players.
While no fewer than seven of this team were prevailed upon last summer to stay around and make themselves heroes in the Dutch context before embarking for fame and fortune elsewhere, in truth Ajax don’t want them around too long, cluttering up the system.
Frenkie de Jong, who made his debut for the first team aged 17, has already agreed to join Barcelona this summer. Mathijs de Ligt, who did likewise, won’t be far behind him. There is a new ambition about the club this season, highlighted by the arrival of Dusan Tadic from Southampton for £11m – the experienced Serb was sensational in the Bernabeu – but Ajax will always be about pushing the best young players from their annual conveyor belt forward.
By comparison, Celtic – along with pretty much every major club – are only playing at it.
Who says you can’t win anything with kids . . .
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