A young, vibrant, attacking team storming through European football, consisting largely of academy players. This description could apply to the same team 24 years apart. A team led by a young manager called Louis van Gaal won the 1995 Champions League with blistering attacking football, 24 years later, will the feat be matched?
The similarities between the two teams are vast and uncanny. Both sides led by relatively young, attacking minded managers, both scoring for fun in domestic football and both teams built around young local players with a cheaply and intelligently assembled supporting cast.
The 1995 version of Ajax went unbeaten in the domestic league, finishing on 88 points (when converted to a 3 point system) and scoring a whopping 106 goals, this meant that with the modern point system they would have finished 12 points clear. The current team amazingly have already scored more (107 as at time of writing with 3 games to play). They haven’t had it all their own way though, in a similar vein to the Premier League, there are two teams that are head and shoulders above the rest. Both Ajax and PSV currently sit on 77 points (meaning they can’t surpass their ’95 points haul) and Ajax are only top thanks to their extraordinarily high goal difference, in fact, their goal difference is higher than their points tally. Not sure I’ve ever seen that one before.
’95 Ajax also went the whole Champions League campaign unbeaten, defeating AC Milan and AEK twice in the group stages, while drawing twice to the now defunct Casino Salzburg. Jari Litmanen would be the key figure in Europe, scoring 4 in these 6 games. Hadjuk Split were defeated in the Quarter Final, before Ajax stuffed Bayern Munich 5-2 in their home leg to get through to the final.
I’ve gone through the starting 11 and substitutes for the 1995 Final to show how incredible a team van Gaal put together. Edwin van der Sar, Michael Reiziger, Frank Rijkaard, Frank de Boer, Clarence Seedorf, Edgar Davids and Ronald de Boer were all academy graduates and started the game. Fred Grim, Patrick Kluivert and Peter van Vossen started on the bench, that’s a total of 10 academy graduates in the match day squad. These were offset by intelligent signings such as Finidi George and Nwankwo Kanu who were signed from Nigerian minnows Sharks & Iwuanyanwu Nationale respectively. Both players signed for peanuts and both immensely talented. The Final itself was a largely disappointing chess match where Ajax met their group runners-up and current holders AC Milan. The deadlock was finally broken in the 85th minute, Frank Rijkaard would find substitute Patrick Kluivert in space in the area and Kluivert would slot home. Ajax would only lose 1 competitive fixture all season, missing out on the treble with a heartbreaking extra time loss to Feyenoord in the Dutch Cup Final.
*I should perhaps note that Rijkaard had left Ajax many years previously and had a massively successful career away from them before returning for the 1994/95 season.
Sadly, this team was steadily broken up over the next few years as the players left for the bigger wages on offer in Italy and Spain. Reiziger, Davids, Bogarde and Kluivert went to AC Milan, the de Boer brothers and Litmanen went to Barcelona, Van der Sar went to Juventus, Seedorf left for Sampdoria, George went to Betis and Kanu went to Inter. Indeed the only player left at the turn of the millennium from the 95 FInal squad was substitute keeper Fred Grim. This has already begun to happen with the current squad .
Due to the Dutch league being ranked an utterly baffling 13th in the current UEFA Association rankings (below Belgium, Ukraine and Turkey), the current Ajax side had to start in the second qualifying round of the Champions League way back in August having finished 2nd in the league last year. Sturm Graz and Standard Liege were defeated quite easily and they were swiftly in the main draw. After a quick start to life in Group E, Ajax fell away and eventually finished 2nd in the group behind Bayern Munich, leaving them unseeded for the knockout phase.
This looked like it had bitten them on the arse a bit when they were drawn against current holders Real Madrid and predictably the tie looked to be over when they lost 2-1 in their home leg. It was summed up when Sergio Ramos took a purposeful booking in the first leg so he could get his suspension out of the way in the second leg and have a fresh record for the rest of the competition, truth be told though, Ajax dominated this game and were very unlucky. To everyone’s surprise, that dominance continued in Madrid, Ajax stunning everyone with a 4-1 away win.
The Quarter Final again saw a poor result in the home leg, scraping a 1-1 draw against a Ronaldo led Juventus. It’s the away leg I want to focus on, and the team that was sent out draws great resemblances with the ’95 vintage, matching a pattern of local players boosted with bargains and astute signings. In fact, every single one of the back four came through the youth system including 19 year old captain Matthijs de Ligt, who to my mind is already a world class centre half. He is partnered at centre half with Daley Blind who has obviously been elsewhere before coming back, with Joel Veltman and Noussair Mazraoui either side of them. In the return leg, Ajax fell behind after the usually imperious de Ligt had a lapse in concentration to allow Ronaldo to steer in a headed goal, at this point, I think everyone felt the tie was over. Ajax were used to adversity though and really took the game to Juve’. Academy product Donny van de Beek had already managed to steer in an equaliser on 34 minutes and Captain fantastic atoned for his error, scoring the winning header on 67 minutes. The team that started the game had an average age of just 24.
It’s near miraculous that Ajax have managed to come back from difficult positions to knock out the two pre-tournament favourites in previous rounds. It’s hard to say whether they will go all the way and I feel like they may run out of luck, but you never know. One thing is for sure, it’s going to be their best chance for a while. As with the ’95 side, this team is going to be broken up and sold off in the next year or so. Frenkie de Jong, the heartbeat of the team with beautiful passing range and technical ability has an agreement at the end of the season to join Barcelona, that sounds familiar doesn’t it (they did get him for free and sell him for £75m though). I can’t see de Ligt staying for much longer and winger David Neres is drawing in attention from all over Europe. A great shame then, let’s just hope they can upset the odds a couple more times, history suggests it’s a cert.
False 9 