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.
“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.
Patrick Berg 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.81 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Sofyan Amrabat will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
7.74, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Caio Henrique will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
12 clean sheets from 31 appearances at Gimnàstic. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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 Gabri Veiga is on it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Bart Verbruggen is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
9 goals in 27 games at TOP Oss — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Ajax updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Zwolle next, and one man in the Ajax dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
45 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
3 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
0‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Ajax came through the finding-out well against Bayern Munich.
Player ratings19 Mar 2029
Jorthy Mokio, 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.
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.
“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. Sofyan Amrabat 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.
Patrick Berg and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Loan watch12 Mar 2029
Paul Reverson’s loan is measured in nothing happening
14 clean sheets from 35 appearances at Stockport County. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
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 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Emre Ünüvar 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.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
0‑3 against Bayern Munich. The honest reading is not that the players were poor; it is that the distance between this club and that one is currently measured in things money takes years to buy.
First, on 74 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Player ratings26 Feb 2029
A brace, and Gabri Veiga takes the afternoon — 8.44
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gabri Veiga provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.87 for the rest of it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Myles Peart-Harris will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Patrick Berg 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.
40 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
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.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 87th, and Groningen spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Two goals and a mark of 8.43 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
“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. Sofyan Amrabat will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ajax the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The offer from Cambuur for Mitchel Bakker 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.
Ajax asked and ADO Den Haag said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The deal that would have taken Rayane Bounida to RKC Waalwijk has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Ajax with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
In brief
SquadDefences have started doubling up on Gabri Veiga
39 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 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.
Transfer targets5 Feb 2029
$5.0M settles it between the clubs for João Mendes
ADO Den Haag have accepted the money. What Ajax do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
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.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yeremay provided it, and the 8.61 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Ajax and Olympique Lyonnais have settled on $150.2M. 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.
Derby days make names, and Oscar Gloukh made his against Feyenoord. 1‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Aston Villa have kept their man, and Ajax go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
“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.
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.
Ajax offered $108.1M; Bayern Munich 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.
The fee is $20.3M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Vitesse drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Ajax asked and Vitesse said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The offer went to NEC 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.
$78.8M on the table at Bayern Munich. 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 Sparta Rotterdam waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The chase for Anselmo García Mac Nulty ended with $6.7M changing hands and Vitesse out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
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.
36 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.
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.
$20.3M on the table at Vitesse. 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 Fortuna Sittard waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets8 Jan 2029
$3.3M settles it between the clubs for Pharell Nash
Groningen have accepted the money. What Ajax do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Two goals and a mark of 8.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
50 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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Ajax will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“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.
A 2‑0 win over Sparta Rotterdam, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Marked 8.20 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
35 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Bart Verbruggen: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
Emre Ünüvar, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.83
A mark of 7.83 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yeremay was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.18 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Marked 8.14 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
1‑1 against SC Freiburg, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Gabri Veiga was at the centre of the description.
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yeremay 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Excelsior tried to reorganise, Ajax did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
The dugoutGabri Veiga has become a man the manager trusts
124Edition
The Ajax Herald
11 Dec 2028
From our football correspondentTriumph
Match9 Dec 2028
Emre Ünüvar wins it after the whistle should have gone
90 minutes played. Emre Ünüvar found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Twente went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
“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.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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.
33 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.
0‑1 against Shakhtar. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Player ratings4 Dec 2028
A brace, and Wout Weghorst takes the afternoon — 8.92
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Wout Weghorst provided it, and the 8.92 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Ajax and Zwolle, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
32 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mitchel Bakker provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
0 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.42 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Abdellah Ouazane did not need any: 7.99, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Patrick Berg 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.
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 Gabri Veiga is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sofyan Amrabat trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
4 shut-outs in 12 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Paul Reverson has been having a lot of them.
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.
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at Ajax and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
31 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.
2‑0 against Goztepe, 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.14 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Caio Henrique wants continental football; whether Ajax can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“I watch every Ajax game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at ADO Den Haag runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
In brief
SquadWords at Ajax training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yeremay 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.
Sofyan Amrabat 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ajax told Bart Verbruggen something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
29 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.
1‑0 against Goztepe, 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. Viktor Tsygankov provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.18 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Ajax will be judged on one thing only.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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 Yeremay 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Myles Peart-Harris 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. Yeremay is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Christos Zafeiris has his answer from Ajax; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“I watch every Ajax game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at ADO Den Haag runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Gabri Veiga is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Christos Zafeiris trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
28 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 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.
Match7 Oct 2028
Another one collected away from home
6 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Mattéo Guendouzi scored, was marked 7.90, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“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.
Patrick Berg 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.
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.
“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.
Patrick Berg 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. Yeremay 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.
26 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
3‑0 against Shakhtar, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
“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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.65 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Yeremay. 3‑1 against Utrecht, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yeremay was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
25 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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 were 87 minutes on the clock and Feyenoord had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Ajax did not stop to explain themselves.
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 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.
4 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.
“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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Rayane Bounida reports back to Ajax with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Caio Henrique wants continental football; whether Ajax can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“I watch every Ajax game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at ADO Den Haag runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yeremay was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Feyenoord on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
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.
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.
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 particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Sondre Ørjasæter provided it, and the 8.51 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Deadline passes with 19 signed and 36 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.
“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.
24 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
10 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 version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Billy van Duijl is living that version at Ajax, and it tends to show in the first month.
The offer from Hapoel Tel Aviv for Oscar Gloukh 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.
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. Abdellah Ouazane is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The phone has started ringing about Myles Peart-Harris again, and this time the name on the line is De Graafschap. Ajax are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
Match19 Aug 2028
Another one collected away from home
3 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.
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.
Sparta Rotterdam will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ajax were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Cambuur paid $760.0K and Ajax took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Patrick Berg 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 morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Calvin Malen has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Newcastle United did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $46.0M for Bart Verbruggen, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Bart Verbruggen has, at Ajax, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $46.0M for Bart Verbruggen, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Ajax will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Ajax have gone to Newcastle United 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.
Ajax asked and Utrecht said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Owen Wijndal 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.
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.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Kyan Vaesen 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.
Christos Zafeiris 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 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.
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.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Kyan Vaesen 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 writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
The offer from RKC Waalwijk for Rayane Bounida 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.
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.
“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.
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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Oscar Gloukh signs something — a contract at Ajax or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $8.8M — a club that wants Jakob Breum enough to be asked twice.
“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.
Patrick Berg 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 not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ajax can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Kyan Vaesen 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.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and RKC Waalwijk waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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.
Ajax asked and Go Ahead Eagles said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ajax told Gabri Veiga something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Ajax have done the hard part with AZ, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $24.9M — a club that wants Isak Jensen enough to be asked twice.
Sergiño Dest 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 name of Joeri Heerkens has come up in conversations Ajax were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tim Dijks is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Oscar Gloukh had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
$12.0M was the most the club would pay and AZ were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The chase for Wouter Goes ended with $6.8M changing hands and AZ out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
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.
Deportivo La Coruña did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $90.0M for Yeremay, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
The fee is $36.7M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Parma drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Ajax have done the hard part with AZ, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
$12.3M was the most the club would pay and AZ were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Ajax asked and Stade de Reims said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Heerenveen paid $15.1M and Ajax took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Yeremay has, at Ajax, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $7.6M — a club that wants Wouter Goes enough to be asked twice.
Parma have accepted the money. What Ajax do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Ajax have gone to Deportivo La Coruña 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.
“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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $15.3M — a club that wants Bendegúz Kovács enough to be asked twice.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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: Telstar have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dies Janse. The answer from Ajax has not changed — yet.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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.
32 appearances and 0 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.
Squad29 May 2028
7 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Maher Carrizo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kyan Vaesen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Ajax has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
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.
Patrick Berg 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.
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.
Squad22 May 2028
Kyan Vaesen 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.
22 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.
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.
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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutRayane Bounida dropped after a run of poor form
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Gabri Veiga is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kyan Vaesen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
21 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.
Position 1 on 88 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Two goals and a mark of 8.76 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Wout Weghorst. 2‑1 against AZ, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
14 shut-outs in 33 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Joeri Heerkens has been having a lot of them.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Patrick Berg is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Gabri Veiga decided nobody was going anywhere. Groningen had no time left to answer.
5 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.
Patrick Berg 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.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Ajax will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
20 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Something was said to Gabri Veiga and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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.
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.
13 clean sheets from 30 appearances at Antalyaspor. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns 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 Gabri Veiga is on it.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Jordy Wijnaldum, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
19 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Fortuna Sittard will want this one forgotten quickly: 6‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ajax were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
A brace, and Oscar Gloukh takes the afternoon — 8.94
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oscar Gloukh provided it, and the 8.94 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. Mattéo Guendouzi provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
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.
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.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Kyan Vaesen 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 dugout27 Mar 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Paul Nardi's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Patrick Berg 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.
8.15. 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.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then NAC Breda scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
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 Mattéo Guendouzi is on it.
9 goals in 26 games at Heerenveen — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Ajax updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
17 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
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.
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.
“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 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ajax can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
At 18 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.
16 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.
First, on 66 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
A brace, and Youri Baas takes the afternoon — 8.52
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Youri Baas provided it, and the 8.52 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
A brace, and Gabri Veiga takes the afternoon — 8.33
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gabri Veiga provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Position 1 with 66 on the board, and the queues outside the ticket office are the part of a promotion push that never shows up in a table. The town has decided this one is real.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
In brief
Player ratingsOscar Gloukh was on a different afternoon to everybody else
15 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.
8.29. 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.
11 shut-outs in 25 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Joeri Heerkens has been having a lot of them.
“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 2 appearances in 30 say he has earned the hearing.
A 5‑2 win over Emmen, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
A brace, and Kyan Vaesen takes the afternoon — 8.52
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kyan Vaesen provided it, and the 8.52 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
14 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 8.44 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Ajax and Emmen in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
In brief
Player ratingsOscar Gloukh ran the middle of the pitch — 7.26
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Ajax will try again when the window opens; AZ may not be selling by then.
13 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Ajax close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 13 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The phone has started ringing about Rayane Bounida again, and this time the name on the line is NAC Breda. Ajax are listening politely and promising nothing.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. RKC Waalwijk have kept their man, and Ajax go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mitchel Bakker is living that version at Ajax, and it tends to show in the first month.
Patrick Berg 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.
“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.
Ajax asked and Vitesse said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$10.4M on the table at Vitesse. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The chase for Jonas Jensen-Abbew ended with $6.8M changing hands and ADO Den Haag out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $54.1M has been paid because Gabri Veiga 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. Gabri Veiga has just signed for Ajax, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
A brace, and Gabri Veiga takes the afternoon — 8.10
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gabri Veiga provided it, and the 8.10 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
The offer went to Porto 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juventus have kept their man, and Ajax go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Almere City waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ajax is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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.
11 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 are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Ajax will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.42 for the rest of it.
The offer from NAC Breda for Gastón Ávila 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Caio Henrique wants continental football; whether Ajax can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
Marked 8.24 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Half the programme played, position 1, 45 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
Loan watchJoeri Heerkens’s loan is measured in nothing happening
SquadThe division's best last weekend was a Ajax man
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 9.45, and nobody on the pitch better.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Rayane Bounida, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.07
A mark of 8.07 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.
“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.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
In brief
The terracesAjax supporters have found a favourite in Oscar Gloukh
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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.03 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
7.91, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“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.
Patrick Berg 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.
Marked 8.54 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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 9.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
8 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
“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.
Viktor Tsygankov 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ajax can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kyan Vaesen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
4 clean sheets from 10 appearances at Antalyaspor. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
8 appearances in, the average sits at 6.70, and the people who defended him through the autumn are enjoying themselves enormously. Adaptation is a story football only tells backwards.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jorthy Mokio signs something — a contract at Ajax or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Derby days make names, and Viktor Tsygankov made his against PSV. 2‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
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.
29 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.
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.
“I watch every Ajax game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Barnsley runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Ajax have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Emre Ünüvar obliged against Helmond Sport. 2‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Ajax.
8 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 hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jofre Torrents did not need any: 8.23, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Caio Henrique wants continental football; whether Ajax can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Mattéo Guendouzi scored, was marked 7.94, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Patrick Berg 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.
Marked 8.22 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Jordy Wijnaldum, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
5 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 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Patrick Berg 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 is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.03 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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 Patrick Berg is on 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.
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.
“I watch every Ajax game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Barnsley 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kyan Vaesen 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.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.28 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
“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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Ajax and Twente in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
8.45. 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.
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
A brace, and Oscar Gloukh takes the afternoon — 8.39
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oscar Gloukh provided it, and the 8.39 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
7.77, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
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.
Match25 Sep 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Ajax. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
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.
Derby days make names, and Mattéo Guendouzi made his against Feyenoord. 4‑1, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
Patrick Berg 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Maher Carrizo wants continental football; whether Ajax can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
At 34 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.
“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.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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.
3 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.
Feyenoord next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
The clubs have shaken hands with ADO Den Haag; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sergiño Dest has just signed for Ajax, and for once the answer mattered.
Ajax have gone to RKC Waalwijk 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Emmen have kept their man, and Ajax go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 13 signed and 21 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.
“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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.5M — a club that wants Shawn Adewoye enough to be asked twice.
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.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $5.6M has been paid because Kyan Vaesen is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
“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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kyan Vaesen has just signed for Ajax, and for once the answer mattered.
Patrick Berg 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Heerenveen will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ajax were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
$5.6M settles it between the clubs for Kyan Vaesen
Beerschot have accepted the money. What Ajax do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Ajax have paid $10.9M for Myles Peart-Harris, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Two goals and a mark of 9.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
$7.9M on the table at Sparta Prague. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Myles Peart-Harris has, at Ajax, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Barnsley have accepted the money. What Ajax do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
6 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Joel De Jong is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Frenkie De Ligt is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jordy Van de Beek is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“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 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Bayer Leverkusen pay $41.5M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
He is going to Bayer Leverkusen, the club has $41.5M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Wout Weghorst 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Ajax that is a harder question to answer.
“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.
Dordrecht paid $370.0K and Ajax took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Dies Janse is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Sondre Ørjasæter has moved up 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 Oscar Gloukh has written the date down.
Den Bosch paid $2.2M and Ajax took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Ajax will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Maher Carrizo wants continental football; whether Ajax can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
13 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.
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.
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 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 Mattéo Guendouzi is on it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Ajax have no good answer.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Ajax has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sondre Ørjasæter has just signed for Ajax, and for once the answer mattered.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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.
Interest from Feyenoord is the one kind Ajax cannot discuss calmly. The player has said nothing; the supporters have said everything, most of it unprintable.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $34.8M for Sondre Ørjasæter, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julian Brandt is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The name of Joeri Heerkens has come up in conversations Ajax were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Dies Janse
“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.
“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.
Ajax asked and Utrecht said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julian Brandt was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
34 appearances and 0 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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Maher Carrizo has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
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.
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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Owen Wijndal had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $39.4M — a club that wants Sondre Ørjasæter enough to be asked twice.
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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ajax can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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.
At 19 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Julian Brandt 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ajax can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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 offer from Go Ahead Eagles for Owen Wijndal 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.
Mattéo Guendouzi 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. Julian Brandt 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 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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Lucas Rosa had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
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.
“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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $5.4M — a club that wants Wouter Goes enough to be asked twice.
At 18 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 phone has started ringing about Owen Wijndal again, and this time the name on the line is Go Ahead Eagles. Ajax are listening politely and promising nothing.
84 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Viktor Tsygankov 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 Julian Brandt was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
16 games and 0 goals away from here, and a man the manager did not have last summer. The loan did what loans are supposed to do and almost never do.
Squad31 May 2027
7 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 Viktor Tsygankov is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Oscar Gloukh trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Something was said to Anton Gaaei and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Caio Henrique 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.
Squad24 May 2027
Julian Brandt 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.