Dutch Football Betting: What odds we ever see this happen again?

European Leagues / Ben Lyttleton / 28 December 2009 / Leave a Comment

Ronald De Boer and Edgar Davids lead the celebrations as Ajax conquer the Inter-Continental Cup in 1995 after winning the Champions league that year

"The Bosman ruling hit Ajax hard: with players given the freedom to run down
their contracts and move anywhere, clubs were quick to pick off talents like
Rijkaard, Seedorf, Davids and the De Boer twins."

Ben Lyttleton recalls the all-conquering Ajax team of the mid-nineties, who went as far as having the audacity of actually winning the Champions League in 1995, and wonders what has gone wrong over the last decade to the extent they can't even win their domestic title these days....

It's the halfway point of the Dutch league, which this season looks like being a two-horse race. Steve McClaren's FC Twente, runners-up last year, are leading the way and ([2.5]) to stay there while two points behind them, helped by a run of eight straight wins, is PSV Eindhoven, [2.02] for the title. Champions AZ Alkmaar are 19 points back, stuck in mid-table and not helped by their sponsors DAB Bank going bust.

The other team you'd expect to be there, Ajax, are in third place and nine points behind Twente. Under coach Martin Jol, rather like when he was at Spurs, they have become the entertainers of the league. You only have to look at last week's Cup matches, when they destroyed amateurs WHC 14-1 (with Luis Suarez scoring six), to know that.

In the league, their games average four goals per match, of which they score over three. In fact, Ajax have netted four or more goals in a game in eight of their 12 league wins. But while Over-Goals is the market to look at with Ajax, why has the last Dutch team to win the Champions League, back in 1995, not even played in Europe's elite competition since 2004?

Part of the answer can be found in Louis van Gaal's successful team of 1995. The lineup that beat Juventus 1-0 in Vienna that night was: Van der Sar, Reiziger, Blind, Rijkaard, F de Boer, Seedorf (Kanu 54), Litmanen (Kluivert 69), Davids, Finidi, R de Boer, Overmars. Ten of those players worked their way through the club's academy before reaching the pinnacle of the club game. "For a group to come through a youth system together like that and win a major competition, I can't see that ever happening again," said Van der Sar.

The Bosman ruling hit Ajax hard: with players given the freedom to run down their contracts and move anywhere, clubs were quick to pick off talents like Rijkaard, Seedorf, Davids and the De Boer twins. The problem of holding onto their players has since become a major issue: whereas the 1995 generation won the Champions League before moving, the more recent crop, which includes Rafael van der Vaart, Wesley Sneijder, Steven Pienaar, Ryan Babel and Nigel de Jong played for an average of four seasons before their next transfer; now, though, Ajax, and other Dutch clubs, find it harder to hold onto their young stars.

"When I started out as a youth coach, it was impossible for even Under-19 players to get contracts, but now sometimes we give them out at 16 because we have to protect our players," said Jan Olde Riekerink, head of Ajax's youth academy. "Developing youth players is our lifeline, but if we lose players to foreign countries because they offer more money, we might as well close our doors."

The loss of young talents at an early age is not the only reason for Ajax's struggles this decade. The Bosman era coincided with the move to the Amsterdam Arena, a stock exchange flotation, and the departure of Van Gaal, who was controlling every aspect of the club.

Two years ago, an independent commission looked into the reasons for Ajax's decline, and came up with plenty: for a start, unfair expectations so a coach who does not win the title (which hasn't happened since 2004) is sacked for under-performing; a lazy recruitment policy which, apparently, "has not bought anyone that made the team play better"; and a succession of former players appointed as coach with the only qualification their status as club icons, which Jan Wouters, Danny Blind and Marco van Basten (briefly, with Johan Cruyff on his ticket) come and go in quick succession.

That's the context into which Jol has thrown himself and like all his predecessors, he has declared the title his immediate goal. "I need to win the championship," he said. He would be better off building the club slowly, trying to keep hold of its young talents and selling off the valuable assets at their peak. This January, for example, he may allow Luis Suarez, top scorer with 18 league goals from 17 games, to leave to bring in some funds. "Money is tight, so we cannot buy and we have to bring through youth players."

That's hardly the set-up of a club that should be challenging for the title. Ajax are ([4.4]) for the Eredivisie. Instead, Jol and the Ajax fans should re-evaluate their short-term targets and enjoy the goals galore that will inevitably come their way for the rest of the season.