Category: blog

blog

by Jan

Ajax’ nightmare season

In typical Dutch form, people will immediately say: “Who is to blame?”. The answer is not very straightforward. Lets first look at the problem.

Ajax was having a decent run in the past seasons. Frank de Boer did ever so well winning titles and turning the poor Ajax into a cash rich club, with some amazing outgoing transfers putting some fat on the bone. Peter Bosz came in and turned De Boer’s boring Ajax into a free-flowing attacking machine, but Bosz ended his 1 season spell with Ajax when Van der Sar refused to work with Bosz on a reshuffling of the backroom staff.

Marc Overmars was acting as technical director, but mainly with a focus on contracts and signing and selling players. The Ajax Technical Triangle was supposed to take care of the football (De Boer, Bergkamp, Ouaali).

The two friends, Dirty Marc and “I haven’t seen anything untoward” Van der Sar

Overmars was kept out of the decision to block Bosz’ plans and allowed Bergkamp his spot in the sun.

Bosz left and not much later, Dennis Bergkamp – Bosz antagonist – also had to leave.

But Bergkamp was fully in control when he was at Ajax and ushered in Marcel Keizer as the replacement for Bosz. Not a bad decision, mind you. Keizer was successful as a coach on the second tier level at Cambuur and as a real Ajax man (his uncle was Piet Keizer), he also coached Ajax 2 and impressed with that team (which had the likes of Van de Beek, De Ligt, Frenkie and Appie Nouri).

Keizer is also a close friend of Bergkamp, so the two set out to lead Ajax. The Nouri situation – the brilliant ballplayer had heart failure in a friendly in the pre-season and due to the late response, he survived the ordeal but that is about it….the poor lad is confined to his bed for the rest of his life – made matters tough for the young coach and the whole team or even club suffered through trauma that season.

Overmars decided to take the reins back from Bergkamp and organised a coup, in which both Keizer and Bergkamp had to make way. Keizer was on title course and would later impress in the Portuguese competition and in the sandpit. Bergkamp never pursued his career elsewhere and became a bit of a football recluse.

Now Overmars was in charge and he quickly lured his friend Erik ten Hag away from FC Utrecht. Ten Hag had had success with Overmars’ first love Go Ahead Eagles and Mark had always planned to get Ten Hag to Amsterdam.

The duo was quite successful, as we know. Overmars dealing with transfers and contracts, Ten Hag dealing with the first team and the results and Van der Sar safely away from the front, dealing with the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the sponsors, the board of directors and any other non-football topic.

At that time, Danny Blind was the football man in the Board and he would be an intrinsic part of Overmars little cabal.

And boy, what was Overmars good at his job. And how horrible did he behave when it wasn’t about football.

Overmars telling inappropriate jokes to Sar?

Despite being married to a former Miss Universe (or Miss Holland, not sure), he couldn’t resist using his powerful position at Ajax to bother and hassle the young ladies working at the social media/marketing department of Ajax. And it went further than texting them invites for dinner. The diminutive former winger enjoyed taking pictures of his …less diminutive mini-me and sent them to the ladies in question, who apparently were to scared to report him to the general manager. One key reason: the general manager (yes Edwin van der Sar) knew this was happening and was part of the sexist cabal at Ajax, enjoying inappropriate humor.

Van der Sar protected his powerful friend but when the news broke in the media, it was clear that the former Arsenal and Barca man had to leave.

So, many things had gone wrong already by that time. But Van der Sar took it a bit further. Instead of trying to replace Overmars with a heavyweight – but with manners – he decided to give newcomer Huntelaar and scout Hamstra the joint role of technical director (not in name though).

Oops. Exposed. But a bit too much exposed.

And obviously, both were too lightweight, inexperienced and unconnected to step into Overmars boots. And what people do forget: he is a very good negotiator. He made money playing football and but multiplied his money by dealing in property and classic cars. Huntelaar and Hamstra are definitely people with expertise and added value but they’re no Overmars.

And it showed, this season. Lisandro Martinez left for Man United. Bassey was brought in. Gravenberch left for Bayern, Austrian midfielder Grillisch is his replacement. And so on.

I believe Sar never replaced Overmars, because he hoped (planned?) to get the speedy ex-winger back after a couple of months of “distance from the club”. But it didn’t happen. And when Alfred Schreuder, assisted by his agent, started to “help” Ajax to more new signings, things turned for the worst.

Ocampos was on the wishlist and Ajax would have signed him for 30+ million euros, if the Board of Directors hadn’t intervened. They forced Ajax to take him on a loan basis. And less than 6 months later, the winger was sent back to Spain as he was never able to convince anyone in Amsterdam.

Ocampos failure

But it went further downhill, as Schreuder lost the dressing room due to several bad decisions. His treatment of Daley Blind (who left after the World Cup), his decision to protect Tadic and never sub him, his decision to not use newcomer Wijndal but try Blind, Bassey and Rensch on that spot, the list goes on.

Daley Blind’s exit had another consequence for the club: highly rated Danny Blind – sounding board for coaches and technical management – could not continue his director’s role what with Daley being pushed out unceremoniously. And again, it appeared that Van der Sar and the Board did not have a shadow list waiting in the drawer.

They didn’t have one for Overmars. Not for Danny Blind and when stalwarts like Michael Reiziger and Academy director Said Ouaali announced their exits too, it was quite clear things are a bit fishy in Amsterdam.

John Heitinga was pushed forward when Schreuder was sacked. Much like his old team mate Van Nistelrooy at PSV, Heitinga planned to build up his career with care and consideration. The former Everton defender managed Ajax 2 and was about to start as Schreuder’s assistant but was propelled into the hot seat immediately.

So now, Ajax is re-building. They were able to get former midfielder Jan van Halst in as new football director in the board of directors. They installed Heitinga for this season, with Dwight Lodeweges as he new assistant and they finally signed a technical director – Sven Mislintat –  to replace Overmars, who seems to be enjoying his time at FC Antwerp, with Mark van Bommel. I personally believe Mislintat could well be the right choice, as he has quite a strong resume and clearly adores Ajax.

So, in conclusion, I think its fair to say that after the mismatch of Bosz-Bergkamp-Overmars-Van der Sar, the combination of Ten Hag-Overmars (without Sar) worked amazingly well. There is no need for me to list the achievements of Ten Hag at Ajax.

But when Overmars had to take his leave, Van der Sar needed more than 12 months (!) to replace him. Imagine that, your key guy in the organisation. And it’s not like Van der Sar was ambushed by the dick-pics, he knew about it. So his lack of taking action resulted in a head coach (Schreuder) who was drowning from day 1. And in hindsight, Schreuder also didn’t do himself many favours with his headstrong attitude within the club.

Heitinga with new technical director Sven Mislintat

The combi Ten Hag – Overmars was replaced by Schreuder-Huntelaar-Hamstra and that combination had no chance!

Ajax’ terrible season – in my view – is another nudge of the keepers gloves of Van der Sar. His list of failings is becoming very long.

And if things turn really sour for Ajax this coming weekend – away versus in form Twente – they might end up playing conference league football next season.

The only bonus: last year, when Van der Sar was asked about having to play in the conference league potentially in the future, his answer was: I will not be with the club when that happens. And the fans will now clutch that claim to their chest. The only silver lining in case Ajax finishes 4th this season.

Bookmark and Share
by Jan

The Arne Slot Miracle

Feyenoord won it’s 16th title, only 6 years after a complete different team (under Van Bronckhorst) won it. And they won it about 19 years later after the trophy in 1999.

The gaps between titles becomes smaller and if Arne Slot has any say on it, the next gap will be even smaller…

At the start of the season (when Gakpo was still at PSV), many pundits and analysts were convinced that PSV and Ajax would be slugging it out for the title and Feyenoord and AZ would battle for 3rd place.

Yes, PSV had to sell their two most prolific attackers in the winter, but Ajax had a complete meltdown while Slot’s Feyenoord transformed into a winning machine. Where Feyenoord won the title in 2017 with 1 point difference on Ajax, today Feyenoord is 13 points adrift from the Sons of Gods after 32 matches. Two more to go.

A very unlikely title, in other words but thoroughly deserved.

When Idrissi scored the 1-0 in the championship match versus the Eagles, the whole city erupted, but Arne Slot was stoic on the sidelines, hands in pockets. When Gimenez scored the second goals, the coach showed some emotion. Understandably, as the second goal was a training ground goal: Feyenoord played in towards the right wing, luring the Eagles’ players to that side. A quick combination brought the ball back into the centre of the pitch, where Eagles now were short handed. Mats Wieffer accelerated the play when he say Paixao popping up in the axis and the Brazilian was able to lob the ball in the path of the explosive Mexican: 2-0.

The 3-0 came when Feyenoord lost the ball close to the Eagles’ box. Three Feyenoord players, led by Polish international Szymanski, immediately put pressure on the defenders. The ball was blindly played out, Wieffer picked the ball up and he got his assist by finding the shrewd Paixao who came in between the lines: 3-0.

Slot has been able to mould this Feyenoord based on four particular pillars.

The Turnaround when possession is lost

In interviews Slot usually says: “What is attacking football? For me, it means hunting for the ball if you don’t have it.” His players can now dream the wise cracks of the coach. Time again he asks his players: can you deliver? Do you have the intensity to play like this? For Slot, how a players reacts when losing the ball is key. When he started at AZ, he showed his players footage of lacklustre players jogging back after losing possession. He clearly hates it. Spicy detail: Slot him self was a bit of a lazy #10 who played elegant and skilled football but wasn’t known for his running and tackling.

In Rotterdam, Slot started with the attackers. They were ones who had to suddenly work their socks off as first defenders. “If you can up the pace of the game and if you can play at a higher pace than the opponent, you will force them into mistakes and you can win the game. Simple.” The opponents were driving to complete breakdown, broken by the energy of the Feyenoord players.

Playing at Ajax in the Cruyff Arena, all these components came together in one particular moment. See the images. The match is only 4 minutes old or Alvarez intercepts a pass to Gimenez. But there is no mourning phase or disappointment. It’s Symanski who runs like a maniac onto Alvarez and got his foot on the ball. Berwijn got the ball but was circled by 5 opponents. Kokcu got possession and and a couple of seconds later it’s 0-1 Feyenoord, goal Gimenez. This goal was made by seven (!) Feyenoord players who immediately went into 5th gear when the opportunity arose. This intensity seemed to much for most opponents, this season.

Alvarez intercepts pass and wants to dribble forward

Szymanski is immediately on Alvarez’ toes and makes it hard for Ajax to play out

Bergwijn collects and is harassed with 5 opponents around him

Feyenoord wins the ball and plays the forward pass. Via Idrissi, Hartman can cross to Gimenez

The Ajax defense is complete overrun

And Gimenez has a tap in, basically….

Defending

Slot: “We need to create a man more situation everywhere on the pitch!”

When Slot was signed by Arnesen, two years ago, many people doubted that the high octane game Slot likes to play would work in Rotterdam. He laughed it off: “I don’t believe it. This can work, because we have 6 non-defenders who need to chip in and help.” He used the World Cup break to work on his team, 6 days a week. And what he did was basically getting into the players’ heads and convince them of his vision. And he did. By repeating the positives and positive examples. He used books and documentaries, such as the Michael Jordan Doco and the book Intensity by Liverpool assistant Pepijn Lijnders to make his case. The core message: make sure we always have more players around the ball when defending. Dick Advocaat used man marking, Slot went to zonal marking. He wants the team to collectively move with the ball, ensuring there is always players close to the ball.

Four attackers all involved in the initial press

The former Sparta playmaker appeared quite flexible in his execution of his ideas. He started last season with his high press of two forwards: the striker and the 10. He started this season with three attackers pressing, the left and right winger and the striker. In the World Cup break, he worked with the team to place a fourth pressure point in the mix: playmaker Kokcu was going to be the 4th presser, behind the striker. But when Gimenez got the role at the expense of Danilo, Slot changed it back. Gimenez feels best with a 10 next to him, so Slot adepted again. And the striker paid Slot back with important goals.

Turnaround when winning the ball

Slot: “If you are well organised in your press, then opponents make mistakes. And their mistakes will immediately provide opportunities for us.”

Gimenez is Feyenoord’s top scorer this season with 15 goals. The high press helped him tremendously, as 12 goals came straight from a turn around high up the pitch. Under Advocaat, in his last season, this only happened 4 times. Only Celtic in Europe scored more often than Feyenoord from a position of high press.

Always a man more around the ball

These statistics were already in Slot’s thinking when he was an assistant at Cambuur. There, he said: “We can be more lethal when the opponent has the ball on their half, as opposed to us having the ball on our half.” And it worked for Feyenoord, as the Rotterdam club was at their most lethal when opponents decided to build up from the back.

Attacking

Slot: “When you have the ball, you need to create a man-more situation immediately and use it.”

His principles aren’t much different in the attacking sense of the game. He was able to increase the % possession from 54% to 60% and when the Feyenoord attackers were totally trained up during the World Cup break, he was able to execute his preferred playing style.

Slowly suffocating the opponent

Slot: “I don’t have the illusion I can make players play better. But I can make the team play in a way that makes the individual seem to be better. So they can play in their strength.”

It’s also good to see that Slot doesn’t force his players into a style of play. He does look at the skill set he has available to him. Good example: the right back position. Geertruida is a very intelligent player, who can play the inverted right back/midfielder role (like Trent Alexander Arnold, John Stones and Joshua Kimmich can play). In that case, the right winger takes the right wing. Pedersen however, doesn’t feel comfortable playing in that role, so whenever he plays, Slot uses him as a wingback marauding down the line and the right winger will come more inside to fill in the extra midfielder role.

And always keeping track of the distances between players

Arne Slot sticks to his guns, but is always looking to finetune his vision to allow the players to play to their strength. This resulted in the miraculous title for Feyenoord.

His next mission: keep as many players on board as possible and try to make a name in the Champions League.

Thanks to Pieter Zwart VI

Bookmark and Share
by Tarcísio Neri

Remko Pasveer renews contract with Ajax

AFC Ajax have announced the contract extension of Remko Pasveer for another season. The 39-year-old goalkeeper will be an Ajax player until the end of next season.

Remko Pasveer played 369 Eredivisie matches for clubs including FC Twente, Heracles Almelo, Go Ahead Eagles, PSV, Vitesse and AFC Ajax. He has been playing in Amsterdam since the start of the 2020/21 season. This season, after several failures, he lost his place in the starting lineup to the Argentine goalkeeper, Gerónimo Rulli.

With the shirt of AFC Ajax, Remko Pasveer played 50 matches. Last season he became Eredivisie champions with the Godenzonen. It was through Ajax that he found a place in the Dutch national team.

Bookmark and Share
by Tarcísio Neri

FC Twente announces Joseph Oosting as new coach

It’s been dragging on for days, but today it’s become official. Joseph Oosting will be the new coach of FC Twente from next season. The 51-year-old has signed a two-year contract with the Tukkers, with the option of an automatic renewal for a further year.

The final disputes between all parties were resolved on Tuesday and the squads of RKC Waalwijk and FC Twente have already been informed of this change. Joseph Oosting will succeed Ron Jans, who will step down as head of the club. He was FC Twente’s priority alongside Peter Bosz.

Joseph Oosting still has a contract lasting two seasons with RKC Waalwijk, given this scenario, FC Twente had to pay an undisclosed amount to get the coach released. It is worth remembering that FC Groningen tried to remove him from RKC Waalwijk in the middle of the season, but Joseph Oosting chose to continue defending the interests of the Waalwijkers.

As Joseph Oosting wants to concentrate on his work at RKC Waalwijk until the end of this season, he will only be officially introduced after the end of this season. With RKC Waalwijk, he is still in the running for a place in the Europese Tickets Eredivisie. In the penultimate round of the Eredivisie, FC Twente will visit RKC Waalwijk at the Mandemakers Stadion. After that, the two teams could face each other in the Europese Tickets Eredivisie for a place in next season’s UEFA Europa Conference League.

The only words he said are recorded in an FC Twente press release.

“I am very proud to be the coach of FC Twente next season. I come from the northeast of the Netherlands and FC Twente is a very well known club there. It’s a team that has a huge fan base and wants to achieve great things in Dutch football. Games played at De Grolsch Veste are always sold out. FC Twente has grown a lot again in recent seasons and the work done by Ron Jans is sensational” said Joseph Oosting.

FC Twente director of football Jan Streuer also commented on the arrival of Joseph Oosting.

“I am very happy with the arrival of Joseph Oosting. He does an excellent job at RKC Waalwijk both this season and last season. In addition to the results, Joseph Oosting managed to build a very strong RKC Waalwijk with very attractive football. As the season progresses, he manages to extract a lot from the players” said Jan Streuer.

Joseph Oosting’s current assistant at RKC Waalwijk, Peter Uneken, is also expected to arrive at De Grolsch Veste alongside the captain.

Bookmark and Share
by Tarcísio Neri

Robey Sportswear to be NEC Nijmegen’s new sports material supplier

NEC Nijmegen released the information that from next season onwards it will have Robey Sportswear as its new supplier of sporting goods. The contract was signed this Tuesday and will run until the end of the 2026/27 season.

In addition to the professional team, all of the club’s youth teams will also be dressed in Robey Sportswear. The company is a supplier to several Eredivisie clubs as well as the Keuken Kampioen Divisie.

“We are extremely happy with this new partnership with Robey Sportswear. The Dutch clothing brand has a very rich history within our professional football. Robey Sportswear is known for providing very high quality products and is the ideal partner to increase our reach across the Netherlands” said NEC Nijmegen Commercial Manager Robin Faber.

Bookmark and Share
by Tarcísio Neri

Sven Mislintat is the new director of football at Ajax

Ajax confirmed the signing of Sven Mislintat on Tuesday. The German has been announced as the Amsterdam club’s new director of football.

With the arrival of Sven Mislintat, the Godenzonen finally named a successor to Marc Overmars. On February 7 last year, Marc Overmars was sacked by Ajax following allegations of harassment against female workers at the club. The investigation continues to date.

After nearly ten years under Marc Overmars, Ajax have long sought a successor to the club’s manager and former player. Gerry Hamstra and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar worked together in this role for a few months. The pair were responsible for forming the Amsterdam club’s squad this season, along with Alfred Schreuder, then the club’s coach at the beginning of that season.

Sven Mislintat signs with Ajax for three seasons. The fifty-year-old German starts immediately at Ajax.

Bookmark and Share
by Tarcísio Neri

Burnley want Bart Verbruggen for next season

One of the great sensations of Belgian football this season is a Dutch goalkeeper who is only 20 years old, we are talking about Bart Verbruggen. The young goalkeeper has already been called up by Ronald Koeman in his first call-up as coach of the Dutch national team.

Faced with excellent performances with the shirt of RSC Anderlecht, clubs like Manchester United and Burnley would be interested in taking Bart Verbruggen out of Belgium and taking him to England.

Current Burnley manager Vincent Kompany was keen to sign Bart Verbruggen at the start of this season, but the Burnley board and RSC Anderlecht could not reach an agreement and Bart Verbruggen continued to work in Belgium.

With a return to the Premier League guaranteed for next season, everything indicates that in the coming months Burnley will make an offer that revolves around 17 million euros to remove Bart Verbruggen from RSC Anderlecht.

Liverpool are also closely following Bart Verbruggen’s development in Belgium and would have the young goalkeeper as an ideal replacement for Alison Becker. Other information that arrived is that Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United want to count on the goalkeeper as early as next season. He would arrive to replace, in the long run, David De Gea.

The young goalkeeper has produced many outstanding performances this season and this has further strengthened interest from clubs across England in his football.

RSC Anderlecht will be looking to get as much value as possible to release Bart Verbruggen. With Hendrik van Crombrugge still at the club, RSC Anderlecht know they won’t have to spend any of the proceeds from the sale of Bart Verbruggen on signing a new goalkeeper.

Bookmark and Share
by Tarcísio Neri

John Heitinga talks about Brian Brobbey situation

What’s going on with Brian Brobbey? This question was asked to John Heitinga after Ajax’s victory over Fortuna Sittard. A victory in which the 21-year-old forward was not fielded.

Brian Brobbey has started just one of the last ten Eredivisie matches. This happened last week in the away game against the Go Ahead Eagles. How is it possible that the attacking talent plays so little and when he enters the field he is not used for the ninety minutes?

According to John Heitinga, part of the solution for the young Ajax player can be found in the training centre, as he made clear at a press conference on Sunday night.

“We are constantly working with him. It is essential that he manages to play more frequently every week. We all want to live the best life, but we need to work hard to make it happen and discipline is key. He has discipline, but he also needs help. It’s up to us, myself included, to make sure Brian Brobbey is in top form right now.”

Bookmark and Share
by Tarcísio Neri

Joseph Oosting confirms talks with FC Twente

The FC Twente board continues to look for a new coach to lead the team from next season onwards. One of the main candidates was Peter Bosz, but the experienced coach has already claimed that he is not considering taking over at FC Twente at this time.

One of the Eredivisie revelations is RKC Waalwijk coach Joseph Oosting. The commander is a serious candidate for the Tukkers board. After the 5-1 loss to Feyenoord, he was asked by journalists whether FC Twente had contacted him.

Enschedese have already recently announced that Ron Jans has opted out of staying at the club for next season. Joseph Oosting has already admitted that he has been approached by FC Twente and that negotiations are ongoing.

“I am in negotiations. I don’t want to talk about it right now. My focus is to finish the season in the best possible position, avoiding any possibility of fighting against relegation”, said Joseph Oosting.

This topic is still difficult for Joseph Oosting.

“We all have ambitions. I’m having a great time at RKC Waalwijk, but we’ll see how things go. I work at a good club, with a good coaching staff, with a good squad. I have nothing to complain about” commented Joseph Oosting.

Etienne Vaessen knows that Joseph Oosting is expected to leave RKC Waalwijk at the end of this season.

“He has already informed us that there is this interest from FC Twente. We are very happy for him. He is an excellent coach and we want him to look for what is best for him” said Etienne Vaessen.

Bookmark and Share