Ghosts of Ajax and Rumors

By: Matt | May 7th, 2008

So with the news that broke yesterday that Danny Blind will be joining the staff at Ajax as technical director, this makes a rather impressive lineup for a possible legends squad should the backroom staff ever decide to play a match.

Def: Frank de Boer, Blind (Koeman may need a job, does he want in?)
Mid: Aron Winter, Gerrie Muhren (scouting), Rob Witschge (coming with MvB)
Att: Bergkamp, van Basten, John van’t Schip (with MvB) sub: Adrie Koster (3 caps, how many have you won?)

Eight out of eleven, needing a true holding mid and some help on the backline. Sound familiar? Now maybe we know why…

So, is this a good thing to have all of these stars (and Koster) return to the place of their former glory? It did not work well for Blind the first time around. He performed adequately and was canned for his trouble. I don’t pretend to know what it takes to run a top-class football club, but I do see that having all of these Ajacied stars around will either be absolutely wonderful or simply awful. The names alone are enough to take a high profile club and drive that profile to the moon. If van Basten can pull it all together, he will be the toast of Holland. If he pulls a Blind and only manages a Beker, he will likely be run out on a rail by the other Ajax stars not included who think they could do better. (And once again, Cruijff, I am looking at you. Respectfully, but directly)

The one encouraging note is that two of the former players listed above are already working with MvB. His time with the national time has certainly not been criticism-free, and the staff has had to man the walls against a media blitz several times already. I also liked seeing MvB and his boys grind out a tough win in Albania during qualifying. If only Ajax could have done the same in another Eastern European match a few months ago…

The latest rumors are not that interesting, but neither is anything else until this weekend. So here you go: Micheal Bradley will probably be off to Germany this summer, not Amsterdam. Too bad. But I think he has seen what the EPL thinks of American midfielders. Is Benny Feilhaber still alive? Ajax is sniffing around another Heerenveen goal scorer, Miralem Sulejmani. This rumor has two strikes against it, however. First, the source is less-than-discerning. Second, the story gets the word from his agent, and we all know how agents roll on matters like this. I have also heard that Chelsea is interested, and I doubt they are the only ones. For what it’s worth, I would prefer Bradley. Ajax 433 works so much better with a mid who can score the odd goal and run the show with his passing. I think Bradley is just going to get better while Perez is just going to get older. Sulejmani would be better suited to the wing than as a KJH replacement, and with Suarez, Rommedahl, Cvitanich, and perhaps Sarpong, we do not need another winger. That said, we will probably get Sulejmani.