Reason #1 to Support Ajax

By: Matt | April 2nd, 2008

Ajax logo Which situation do you find most entertaining in movies, books, or TV shows?
A) The hero has virtually unlimited resources and expectations to match.
B) The hero must exhibit resourcefulness, nerve, and smarts to overcome impossible odds
If you prefer B, and do not live near the epicenter of one of the world’s largest football clubs, then you should be interested in following Ajax.

What attracts me to Ajax, and to any team in any league or sport, is that in order to win, they MUST manage their resources well. They must squeeze every last drop out of their transfer money, patiently cultivate their youth system, build a tradition and team chemistry, and hope to capitalize on these things only if they have done everything right. If they are doing these things, you can see the momentum building. Nothing beats seeing a plan come together after a few years of work, and few things are more rewarding than seeing the players your team “discovered” grow into world-beaters. Ajax has done this before, and it turned them into a powerful “big” club. They brought in guys named Zlatan, Maxwell, Chivu and Litmanen to play with their own stars like van der Vart, Sneijder, Davids, and Seedorf.

The difficult part of choosing to support a team in this situation is the down years in-between runs of quality. Certainly Ajax should challenge for the Eredivisie title every year, but it is becoming clear that the domestic title is not ours by default. Ajax has won only two titles since 1998 and even managed to be bounced from Europe before group stages this year. This humbling run at home and in CL and UEFA play has been frustrating, and there is much to criticize in the team’s management. But there is still plenty of things going on to keep you interested.

Will Gregory van der Wiel become a classy CB? Where on the pitch is Jan Vertonghen at his best? How high is the ceiling on Luis Suarez? How good will Jeffrey Sarpong, Siem de Jong and Vurnon Anita turn out to be? Is Maarten Stekelenburg the next great Dutch keeper? These are all fascinating questions, and the teams fortunes ride on the answers. If the results are bad, Ajax will not be able to simply replace the cogs in the wheel in the manner of a European superpower. We must pay dearly for our bad personnel decisions (see Rommedahl, Kennedy, Luque, Colin). Ajax is not in a position to buy their way out. OK, they may have the money, but they have to find guys that good willing to come to Holland rather than move to Italy, Spain, or England. Luka Modric is a terrific example of a guy we should (could?) have brought in years ago. He will now be a quick-fix for Chelsea or Liverpool or AC Milan.

Because, let’s face, supporting Milan or Real Madrid this year has been kinda like sitting through an entire Superman movie only to see him die in the end at the hands of Lex Luther (and I mean really die, not the comic book kinda death where he is back the next issue). When a “big” club wins the league or the CL, how rewarding is it really? If you are not convinced by that, ask yourself this: who was happier last year, supporters of Liverpool or Stuttgart? Will a scudetto be more exciting in Rome or at Inter? How exciting would it be at Everton to pip Liverpool on the last day?

How much fun will you have watching Ajax re-emerge and entertain the world again? The sooner you start, the better it will be.