81 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.
12 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Tyrell Malacia is living that version at Ajax, and it tends to show in the first month.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.18 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
5 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Ajax training over how hard people work
80 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.
6‑0. Nights like this are why clubs spend decades trying to qualify for this competition, and they arrive perhaps twice in that time. Everybody who was in the ground will describe it badly for years.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.08 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Ajax and AEK, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
In brief
SquadWords at Ajax training over how hard people work
79 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
9 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.
Excelsior will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ajax were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings17 Sep 2029
A brace, and Hugo Ekitiké takes the afternoon — 9.60
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Hugo Ekitiké provided it, and the 9.60 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Roméo Garnier had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.32 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Jérémy Doku 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ángel Alarcón will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
78 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.
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Ajax have 7 straight wins of it.
Player ratings10 Sep 2029
A brace, and Oscar Gloukh takes the afternoon — 9.38
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oscar Gloukh provided it, and the 9.38 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Félix Lemaréchal will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ajax heard it as anything else.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Roda waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
6 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.16 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Deadline passes with 19 signed and 14 gone
That is the business done at Ajax until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ajax heard it as anything else.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Excelsior waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Heracles had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
5 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.35 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Jérémy Doku 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.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Ajax have paid $134.1M for Wesley Fofana, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Wesley Fofana is living that version at Ajax, and it tends to show in the first month.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
76 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.
Ajax and Chelsea have settled on $134.1M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Willem II waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Two goals and a mark of 8.50 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Vitesse had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.20 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
92 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ajax heard it as anything else.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajax lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Jérémy Doku 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 16 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Hugo Ekitiké is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Karl Hein trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Cambuur waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Jérémy Doku 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutWouter Goes asks for a word with the manager
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The offer from Tskhinvali for Ryan van de Pavert was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Oscar Gloukh has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Joel De Jong has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Willem II waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Roda waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Jérémy Doku 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jofre Torrents is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 26 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Ajax know which stage they are at.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $191.0M has been paid because Jérémy Doku is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Ajax asked and Twente said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Mihajlo Cvetković had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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.
Jérémy Doku 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.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Jérémy Doku from Arsenal for $191.0M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Ajax offered $231.7M; Chelsea 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Willem II waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The fee is $5.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Heracles drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ajax can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from De Graafschap for Maher Carrizo was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Tristan van Gilst is living that version at Ajax, and it tends to show in the first month.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Ajax have gone to Arsenal with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” De Graafschap had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ajax can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Excelsior for Oliver Edvardsen was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Hugo Ekitiké 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.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 7 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ajax heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Hugo Ekitiké 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youri Baas 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Tijjani Reijnders is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ajax, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Caio Henrique has written the date down.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ajax know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody has promised him anything and he has not asked. The coaching staff have noticed, which at this stage of a season is the only thing that matters.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Ajax had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sofyan Amrabat 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is on it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ayoub Oufkir trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
75 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ajax heard it as anything else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oliver Edvardsen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Ajax supporters have already started telling it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Hugo Ekitiké 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youri Baas 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ajax told Kenneth Taylor something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“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 7 appearances in 34 say he has earned the hearing.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Hugo Ekitiké is on it.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Youri Baas is on it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ayoub Oufkir has written the date down.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ángel Alarcón will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Julian Brandt 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Youri Baas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Denso Kasius trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Ajax. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The word out of the training ground is that he has been the sharpest man there all week. It is the quietest story a paper carries and it usually runs the week before somebody's run in the side begins.
92 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Hugo Ekitiké and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Youri Baas 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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ajax know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Hugo Ekitiké 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.
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.
“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 7 appearances in 30 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ajax, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Emre Ünüvar was the best thing in any of them.
In brief
MarketAjax and Emre Can are talking past each other
92 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.
Player ratings2 Apr 2029
Emre Ünüvar, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.59
A mark of 9.59 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Hugo Ekitiké 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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Youri Baas 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youri Baas 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.
At 22 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.
4‑1. Nights like this are why clubs spend decades trying to qualify for this competition, and they arrive perhaps twice in that time. Everybody who was in the ground will describe it badly for years.
88 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ajax will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.47 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rayane Bounida will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youri Baas 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.
72 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maher Carrizo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Ajax hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
3‑1 against Rosenborg, 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia provided it, and the 8.45 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
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.
71 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oliver Edvardsen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
12 goals and a season average of 7.39. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Youri Baas 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Cambuur waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
6 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Hugo Ekitiké 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youri Baas 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.
69 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.
Ajax ran out of time with FC Nantes. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax people have started saying his name in the past tense.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia provided it, and the 8.54 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rayane Bounida provided it, and the 8.42 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
5 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.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Deadline passes with 4 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Ajax until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Liverpool did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $185.6M for Hugo Ekitiké, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
$73.5M on the table at FC Nantes. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Kenneth Taylor is a Ajax player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Hugo Ekitiké is living that version at Ajax, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Mark Verkuijl had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
4 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ajax have gone to Twente with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Groningen had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oliver Edvardsen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Monaco keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
The offer went to Liverpool this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Excelsior will replay every second of the added time for a week.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The fee is $4.8M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Utrecht drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Emre Ünüvar did not need any: 7.99, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Ajax and Utrecht have settled on $4.8M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 14 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youri Baas 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.
66 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia provided it, and the 8.60 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Ajax had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
“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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Ajax hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
23 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.
13 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oliver Edvardsen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Youri Baas 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.
65 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.
12 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Emre Ünüvar did not need any: 8.32, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jofre Torrents will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
64 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Match10 Dec 2028
Another one collected away from home
22 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.
11 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.
3‑1 against Lugano, 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rayane Bounida will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ajax heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Youri Baas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
63 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
9 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.
18 goals and a season average of 7.55 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings4 Dec 2028
Jofre Torrents, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.86
A mark of 7.86 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maher Carrizo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Youri Baas 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ajax heard it as anything else.
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.
62 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
21 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.
2‑0 against Panathinaikos, 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.
8 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Julian Brandt 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Ajax training over how hard people work
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
6 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.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jofre Torrents will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youri Baas 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.
61 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.
A mark of 8.49 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
5 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Maher Carrizo 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.
19 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.
2‑0 against Red Bull Salzburg, 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.
A mark of 8.20 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
3 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.
Julian Brandt 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.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Youri Baas 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.
59 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Julian Brandt 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.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Youri Baas 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.
The first defeat in 28 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Red Bull Salzburg; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
1‑1 against Red Bull Salzburg, 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jofre Torrents will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia provided it, and the 8.47 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Julian Brandt and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Youri Baas 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.
16 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Julian Brandt 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.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Youri Baas 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.
25 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.
15 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.
3‑0 against Lugano, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Youri Baas 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.
23 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kasper Dolberg provided it, and the 9.07 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jofre Torrents will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Karl Hein 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.
In brief
SquadYouri Baas falls out with a teammate over standards
22 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.
3‑0 against Panathinaikos, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia provided it, and the 8.56 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rayane Bounida will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Karl Hein 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.
20 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax people have started saying his name in the past tense.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rayane Bounida provided it, and the 8.39 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Zakaria Ouazane, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.79
A mark of 7.79 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maher Carrizo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Youri Baas 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
19 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.
Match2 Sep 2028
Another one collected away from home
13 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax people have started saying his name in the past tense.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Viktor Tsygankov provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 27 arrived, 35 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ajax heard it as anything else.
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.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Youri Baas 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.
18 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Karl Hein 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
17 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax people have started saying his name in the past tense.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia provided it, and the 8.45 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Toluca had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
51 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.
11 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. David Kalokoh will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Roda waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Emre Can has, at Ajax, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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 phone has started ringing about Roméo Garnier again, and this time the name on the line is USM Khenchela. Ajax are listening politely and promising nothing.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Rayane Bounida has his answer from Ajax; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The fee is $13.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Utrecht drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Shaqueel van Persie is living that version at Ajax, and it tends to show in the first month.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
90 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
$13.1M on the table at Utrecht. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Heracles waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Groningen have kept their man, and Ajax go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 24 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Heracles waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Heracles for Davy Klaassen was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Julian Brandt 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.
Add another name to the list: Zwolle have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Zakaria Ouazane. The answer from Ajax has not changed — yet.
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.
0 caps, a month of football, and a medal that will never leave a drawer. He is due back at Ajax in a fortnight and nobody will mention it, which is its own way of mentioning it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Denso Kasius has, at Ajax, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Youri Baas 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.
Add another name to the list: IMT have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Roméo Garnier. The answer from Ajax has not changed — yet.
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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Paul Reverson is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Ajax know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ayoub Oufkir was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ayoub Oufkir has, at Ajax, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jofre Torrents will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
In brief
SquadWords at Ajax training over how hard people work
Squad9 new faces, and Ajax are still learning each other
The chase for Wouter Goes ended with $16.8M changing hands and AZ out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Radnicki Nis waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Wouter Goes has, at Ajax, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. NEC moved on, Rayane Bounida reports back to Ajax, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Youri Baas 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Ajax training over how hard people work
The dugoutYouri Baas has become a man the manager trusts
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Ajax offered $14.6M; Twente 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.
Youri Baas 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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.19, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The offer went to AZ this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Ajax have gone to AZ with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer from De Graafschap for Maher Carrizo was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Ajax hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
26 appearances and 8 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Caio Henrique, and the manager let it.
Squad29 May 2028
9 new faces, and Ajax are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Tijjani Reijnders is on it.
0 appearances, 0 clean sheets, and a goalkeeper no further forward than the day he left. Whether that belongs to him, to the club that borrowed him or to the people who arranged it is the argument Ajax will have this month.
In brief
The dugoutEmre Ünüvar asks for a word with the manager
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.
Squad22 May 2028
25 clean sheets and the golden glove for Karl Hein
The one award on the pitch nobody else can win. 25 games in a season in which nobody scored past him, and a career that will be measured against this one.
Sofyan Amrabat 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.
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.
15 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Julian Brandt 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.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is on it.
8 goals in 26 games at Chaves — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Ajax updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Ajax would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Don-Angelo Konadu has his answer from Ajax; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ajax will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Steven Promes has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nathan Brobbey has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Teun Malen has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Quincy Promes has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Something was said to Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ajax will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Julian Brandt 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tijjani Reijnders 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.
“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.
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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Karl Hein has written the date down.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Ajax would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ajax know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutÁngel Alarcón knocks on the manager’s door
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ajax lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ajax will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Julian Brandt 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.
A season average of 7.19 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Ajax know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ajax told Khvicha Kvaratskhelia something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I watch every Ajax game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Tobol runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
29 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ajax lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ajax will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Portland Timbers had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bitello 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.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ajax told Oscar Gloukh something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The words a physio says slowly. 36 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
11 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.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 90 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ajax will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia provided it, and the 8.51 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
45 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ajax lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
10 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Youri Baas 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tijjani Reijnders 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.
At 19 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.
49 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
53 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ajax lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
12 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
Jofre Torrents, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.70
A mark of 7.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Julian Brandt 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.
48 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.
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajax lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
11 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.
2‑0 against Hajduk Split, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Rayane Bounida was at the centre of the description.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Groningen spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rayane Bounida provided it, and the 8.15 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
47 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
71 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ajax lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
78 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Joeri Heerkens had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Ajax hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The offer from Sandefjord for Charlie Setford was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The words a physio says slowly. 79 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
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.
7 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.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Ajax supporters have already started telling it.
Julian Brandt 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.
46 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajax lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Derby days make names, and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia made his against PSV. 1‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
2‑0 against Hajduk Split, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was at the centre of the description.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them, with his name on it, and it is a year of bragging rights for Ajax and a story that will outlast his contract.
The words a physio says slowly. 95 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Joeri Heerkens had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mihajlo Cvetković did not need any: 8.46, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
44 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.
103 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajax lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Davy Klaassen had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Rayane Bounida, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.39
A mark of 8.39 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The words a physio says slowly. 112 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and NEC waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mihai Nita has, at Ajax, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Rayane Bounida did not need any: 7.84, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
119 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajax lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 9.19 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” De Graafschap had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.32, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings24 Jan 2028
Rayane Bounida, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.34
A mark of 8.34 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
43 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The words a physio says slowly. 128 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $109.1M has been paid because Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has just signed for Ajax, and for once the answer mattered.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Roda waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Rayane Bounida did not need any: 8.22, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
In brief
Transfer targetsNo deal for Sem van Duijn at that price
137 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ajax lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Ajax have gone to Paris Saint-Germain with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ajax have lost him in all but the paperwork.
7 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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Joeri Heerkens had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Miliano Jonathans has, at Ajax, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
In brief
Transfer targetsAn offer of $890.0K for Sem van Duijn
41 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.
Ajax have gone to Spartak Moscow with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The words a physio says slowly. 46 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
6 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.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Ajax had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Rayane Bounida did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Ajax hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
3‑0, and Julian Brandt took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Ajax tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
A brace, and Julian Brandt takes the afternoon — 8.34
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Julian Brandt provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Rayane Bounida did not need any: 8.28, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The offer from Independiente Rivadavia for Joeri Heerkens was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
8.52. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mihajlo Cvetković 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.
40 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Rayane Bounida, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.48
A mark of 8.48 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
4 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.
Youri Baas 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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Ajax and Roda in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tijjani Reijnders 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.
39 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
2‑0 against Braga, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Mihajlo Cvetković was at the centre of the description.
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mihajlo Cvetković did not need any: 8.01, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Julian Brandt 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ajax heard it as anything else.
In brief
SquadAt 21, Rayane Bounida is already the best thing here
38 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mihajlo Cvetković did not need any: 9.75, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Ajax hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
37 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Ajax pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Tijjani Reijnders is on it.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. De Graafschap will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Julian Brandt 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tijjani Reijnders was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 1 appearances in 15 say he has earned the hearing.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Julian Brandt is on it.
36 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Julian Brandt 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. David Kalokoh 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mihajlo Cvetković was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
2‑0 against Rapid Wien, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Kasper Dolberg was at the centre of the description.
The first defeat in 9 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Utrecht; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tijjani Reijnders 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.
“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 19 say he has earned the hearing.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Oscar Gloukh 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.