Two goals and a mark of 9.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.41 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 7 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ajax heard it as anything else.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Zwolle spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew 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.
The fee is $8.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Heerenveen drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ajax will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jacob Trenskow is living that version at Ajax, and it tends to show in the first month.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Groningen have kept their man, and Ajax go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Marked 8.77 — 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Ajax training over how hard people work
FC Augsburg paid $34.9M 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
$8.1M on the table at Heerenveen. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Youri Baas has gone, the accounts have $34.9M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Elijah Dijkstra is living that version at Ajax, and it tends to show in the first month.
Julian Brandt and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Elijah Dijkstra is 20, and Ajax have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Two goals and a mark of 9.20 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 33 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ajax will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jan Vertonghen has just signed for Ajax, and for once the answer mattered.
Julian Brandt was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ajax, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ajax will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Nothing signed, nothing denied, and a lot of people suddenly very careful about their wording. Supporters who have been through one of these know the quiet part lasts months.
The offer from Derby County for Steven Berghuis 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.
Add another name to the list: Racing Genk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Owen Wijndal. The answer from Ajax has not changed — yet.