Johan Cruyff Brought in to Turn Ajax Around

By: Daryl | February 20th, 2008

Cruyff back at Ajax It wasn’t so long ago that Ajax were one of the powers in European football, with a youth system everyone wanted to copy. But it’s all gone a bit wrong recently. The once dominant Dutch club hasn’t won the Eredivisie since 2004, and only three times in the last ten years. And if the 1995 Champions League victory with mostly homegrown players seems like a long time ago, then that’s because it was.

This year Ajax crashed out of the Champions League in the Third Qualifying Round this season, and then exited the UEFA Cup in October. So Ajax need turning around. And who’s better at turns than Johan Cruyff? So the Ajax (and Barcelona and Netherlands) legend has been appointed to an as-yet unnamed role at Ajax with a brief to “redevelop the club’s technical policy.”

Cruyff is a legend at the club where he started his career, just as he’s a legend everywhere else. As a player he won three European Cups with Ajax (1971, 1972 and 1973) and eight Eredivisie titles. He also had a brief spell as coach in the late eighties that brought two Dutch Cups and the 1987 European Cup Winners’ Cup, before moving on to win four La Liga titles and the 1992 European Cup as manager of Barcelona.

Normally we could dismiss this sort of news as a club drafting in a popular name for a bit of good publicity, but given that Cruyff has been shaping policy at Barcelona in recent years without even holding an official position, it’s fairly safe to assume he’ll get plenty of control over what happens in Amsterdam. He doesn’t do things any other way.

Will be interesting to see what Cruyff comes up with, and if Ajax’s problems actually have a solution. It’s unlikely Ajax will be a force in Europe again in the near future – mostly because the finances of a team in the Eredivisie can’t match those available to teams from the Premier League, La Liga or Serie A – but I’d love to see him reinvigorate the youth policy at Ajax so the club start nurturing great players like Cruyff himself once again.

And while we’re on the subject, here’s a reminder of just how ridiculously talented the man was with his feet: