Marked for Marcos Leonardo
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match23 Nov 2026
Ajax refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 32 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Match21 Nov 2026
There were 88 minutes on the clock and De Graafschap had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Ajax did not stop to explain themselves.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Ajax
Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Tomoki Hayakawa falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match21 Nov 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Marcos Leonardo’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Ajax.
The terraces23 Nov 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Marcos Leonardo has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match7 Nov 2026
10 unbeaten for Ajax
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Ajax did not have in the autumn.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Ajax
Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Ajax training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davy Klaassen is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Loan watch9 Nov 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ajax, and 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Tomoki Hayakawa has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Ajax will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Match7 Nov 2026
Ajax and Utrecht cancel each other out
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Utrecht came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
Market9 Nov 2026
The name of Tomoki Hayakawa keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Ajax say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match31 Oct 2026
The derby belongs to Ajax
1‑0 against Feyenoord, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
The Ajax board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Ajax support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
Match31 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play Ajax right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Ajax training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomoki Hayakawa is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
The Ajax sale is off
The deal fell over and took everything it was going to pay for with it. The club wakes up with the same owner, the same budget and rather less goodwill.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Oscar Gloukh in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajax this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Ajax release $10.4M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match24 Oct 2026
The derby belongs to Ajax
1‑0 against PSV, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
Match26 Oct 2026
Ajax up to position 2
22 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Match24 Oct 2026
8 unbeaten for Ajax
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Ajax did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them and it is a story a city tells for a decade. Ajax have their man.
Squad26 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajax this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Ajax training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davy Klaassen is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The terraces26 Oct 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Marcos Leonardo has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Josip Šutalo, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Ajax training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davy Klaassen is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Marcos Leonardo has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match12 Sep 2026
Twente made Ajax work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ajax, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 7.57 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Ajax had the best player on the pitch.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gonzalo Crettaz trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A first senior shirt for Pharell Nash
Every debut is a small story about the future: Pharell Nash, 18 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market17 Aug 2026
Ajax pay NEC $6.4M for a proper upgrade
NEC did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $6.4M for Gonzalo Crettaz, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Gonzalo Crettaz gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gonzalo Crettaz has just signed for Ajax, and for once the answer mattered.
Market17 Aug 2026
Ravenna come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Ajax did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Ajax
Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Ajax training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davy Klaassen is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Mika Godts
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Market17 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Roméo Garnier again, and this time the name on the line is Zwolle. Ajax are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Maher Carrizo and Ajax agree another 5 years.