Marked for Simon Adingra
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match2 Jan 2027
6‑1, and Simon Adingra took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Ajax tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match4 Jan 2027
Ajax refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 56 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.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
$10.2M on the table at AZ. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad4 Jan 2027
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
No deal for Patati at that price
Ajax offered $7.0M; AZ said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad4 Jan 2027
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Ajax have had the benefit of it.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
There is money circling Ajax
Nothing signed, nothing denied, and a lot of people suddenly very careful about their wording. Supporters who have been through one of these know the quiet part lasts months.
Match2 Jan 2027
The run at home goes on for Ajax
13 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match26 Dec 2026
Whatever happens, Ajax do not lose
22 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Ajax
Thilo Kehrer and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market28 Dec 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ajax can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Match26 Dec 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Kasper Dolberg’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Ajax.
Squad28 Dec 2026
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Kasper Dolberg was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
A performance of 8.19 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
A performance of 8.11 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match12 Dec 2026
Whatever happens, Ajax do not lose
20 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match10 Dec 2026
A European night to remember for Ajax
2‑1 against Astra, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match12 Dec 2026
The run at home goes on for Ajax
11 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Match12 Dec 2026
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 9 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Sofyan Amrabat commits to Ajax for another 4 years.
The terraces14 Dec 2026
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Ninety minutes of Simon Adingra at his very best
Marked 8.57. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Ajax.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match26 Nov 2026
Ajax do the business in Europe
3‑1. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Ajax came through the finding-out well against IFK Goteborg.
Match28 Nov 2026
Another one collected away from home
10 on the bounce on the road for Ajax. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Match28 Nov 2026
Ajax cannot stop winning
7 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.64 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Julian Brandt is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.47 with 19 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Age has not caught Davy Klaassen yet — 8.48
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.48 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match28 Nov 2026
Ajax make home a hard place to visit
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Match28 Nov 2026
Three points for Ajax, 2‑0 the final word against ADO Den Haag in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Market30 Nov 2026
Ajax may not be able to give Lucas Rosa what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Lucas Rosa wants continental football; whether Ajax can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match5 Nov 2026
Ajax do the business in Europe
2‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Ajax came through the finding-out well against Vikingur.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.40, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match7 Nov 2026
Still nobody has beaten Ajax
The unbeaten run reaches 12. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match7 Nov 2026
Ajax are at home on the road
8 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Squad9 Nov 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
Three points for Ajax, 1‑0 the final word against Utrecht in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad9 Nov 2026
50 goals for this club, and somewhere in the stand there is a person who can still tell you where they were for most of them.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.20, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 8.10 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match1 Oct 2026
A statement in Europe from Ajax
4‑1 against Astra, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match3 Oct 2026
3‑0, and Simon Adingra took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Ajax tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.61 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A brace, and Simon Adingra takes the afternoon — 8.14
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Simon Adingra provided it, and the 8.14 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match3 Oct 2026
Ajax make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Ajax have 5 straight wins of it.
Match3 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Ajax. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Ajax
Thilo Kehrer and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Owen Wijndal at his very best
Marked 8.59. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Ajax.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market14 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Ajax, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match12 Sep 2026
Ajax come up short against Twente
Twente left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad14 Sep 2026
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Match12 Sep 2026
After 4 games, Ajax finally taste it again
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Twente; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Doors closed at Ajax
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Jeroen Lang left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Victor Jensen, and the manager let it.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Sofyan Amrabat asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.