There are not many clubs around today that identify themselves via their philosophy, the ethos and morals that define the players, the fans & the club itself. In fact, I can only think of 3; FC Barcelona, Bayern Munich and of course Ajax.
The foundations on which the club has evolved is built on the ideas of a few brilliant men; Jack Reynolds, Rinus Michels and Johann Cruyff. Today the club fills its boardroom with serial winners who are equipped with experience of taking the club to the highest level of club football. With individuals like Tonny Bruins Slot, Dick Schoenaker, Edwin Van Der Sar & Cees Vervoorn holding places at Director level, regardless of who is at the helm the way of life at Ajax is always expected to follow the principles of the great men who have come and gone before.
When appointing Erik Ten Hag in December of last year following the departure of Marcel Keizer, it was clear Ajax were following the principles of Cruyffism. Between 2013-2015, Ten Hag was the Coach of Bayern II where he enjoyed a successful relationship with non-other than Head Coach & Cruyff devotee Pep Guardiola. Its well known that Erik Ten Hag shares a similar amount of passion for football as Guardiola, Ten Hag’s viewpoint on football is mercurial as his thinking towards the game. While in charge of FC Utrecht he had the daunting task of trying to guide them further up the table, with limited funds and terrible facilities he had to improvise his tactics and implement his own style of play to find success.
When taking over from Marcel Keizer, it would be reasonable to say that things got off to a slow start for the Dutchman, but after a decent pre-season that contained a 5-1 thrashing over RB Leipzig its clear things are starting to evolve from last season.
In the small sample we have from this season so far, Ajax have come away from their traditional 4-3-3 system and have opted for a more fluid version of a 4-2-3-1 that sometimes transformed into a hybrid 4-4-2 with Donny Van De Beek playing almost as a 2nd Striker, a role Davy Klaassen used to fill before his move to Everton.
The shape that Erik Ten Hag has instilled at Ajax this season is a rather peculiar one, in The Netherlands the first 2 names on team-sheets are usually the Left Winger & Right Winger and build from there. In the few matches we’ve seen of Ajax this season there seems to be a huge amount of freedom and movement from the wide players Hakim Ziyech & new signing Dusan Tadic. With Klass Jan Huntelaar spearheading the attack, the 2 wingbacks; Noussair Mazraoui and Nicolás Tagliafico will act as the wide players in the system, allowing Ziyech and Tadic to roam inside and support Huntelaar.
By looking at these plots that chart each respective players touches from this season so far, we can see there is not a lot of difference; there is a small nod to each players starting side (mainly Ziyech) but this is a testament to the fluidity that currently exists within the Ajax squad.
There’re some players that just make football a joy to watch, Frenkie De Jong is one of those players. You can scroll through your Twitter feed when Ajax are playing and see GIF after GIF of Frenkie picking the ball up from deep and casually skipping past players and no matter how many times you watch… it never gets boring.
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