Out in the Champions League: Mission Ajax on the edge

It was a fantastic Ajax season until five days ago. Erik ten Hag's team had not lost a single match in the first division after 15 games, while in the group stage of the Champions League they were ahead of Valencia CF and Chelsea. The trip to the intoxicating preseason, when they became sovereign champions and just missed the finale in the Champions League, seemed to go on similarly.

Five days later, the whole successful project Ajax Amsterdam is on the verge.

Their first defeat in the league on Friday against Willem II they have received in Amsterdam as an industrial accident, the 0-1 home defeat against Valencia CF in the Champions League on Tuesday night, however, is far more than just a lost football match.

The result brought Valencia and Chelsea past the Dutch, the Champions League knockout round, scheduled to take place without Ajax. In the Netherlands, many agree that this will have lasting consequences. For the squad, for the coach, for the whole club.

"This can be the end of an era," headlined the Algemeen Dagblad. The newspaper classifies the game against the Spaniards as an "absolute key game in modern club history". The journalist Marco Timmer of the journal "Vietbal International" states: "Ajax wants to be structurally connected to the European top, but that includes wintering in the Champions League". That's what they missed, "given away recklessly", as coach ten Hag complained after the match.

Home is the worm in it

Ultimately it was the home weakness that cost Ajax to progress. Like against Chelsea, the Dutch were unable to dominate the game in their own stadium. While Ajax have remained unbeaten in the past ten away games in the Champions League and have brilliantly played with superior counterplay, the team is struggling at home. That was already in the preseason, where you won neither against Bayern in the group stage, and later against Real, Juventus and Tottenham in the second round in Amsterdam - while you won in Madrid, Turin and London in some outstanding style.

Ajax has a similar problem at a lower level than Thomas Tuchel's Paris Saint-Germain in France. They have almost outgrown their own league, there is no other goal than the championship, but since the preseason, the ambitions have expanded, a good performance in the Champions League matured to the actual season goal. With the difference that PSG has enough money to hold its most valuable players, even if it does not run smoothly in the premier class.

Ajax is financially and structurally a giant in the Netherlands, but European at best a threshold club between the upper middle class and the top clubs. Whenever Ajax had recently built a team at a higher level, it aroused the desires of even larger clubs in Europe. So it seemed clear after the Champions League attack last year that this squad, who had fined Real Madrid and Juventus in an impressive manner, would be ripped off in the summer.

Now the sale is threatening

In the end, however, there were only two key players who left the club for the new season - defender Matthijs de Ligt joined Juventus, midfielder mastermind Frenkie de Jong to FC Barcelona. After Barça's win at Inter Milan on Tuesday, Social Media saw a picture of how de Jong commented after the final whistle, shaking his head off the Ajax on the scoreboard.

Looks like Frenkie De Jong just saw Ajax went out pic.twitter.com/jv1GcPS4f6

Others like the fiercely courted Hakim Ziyech, goalkeeper Andre Onana, striker David Neres or defender Nicolas Tagliafico decided to stay because the Ajax management around the former club greats Edwin van der Sar and Marc Overmars could convince them that something is happening again in Amsterdam , This will be much harder to argue in the future.

This also applies to the coach. That ten Hag at Bayern has long been on the wish list is known. The coach himself has not been averse to returning to Munich, where he was a coaching staff several years ago. The 49-year-old is the architect of this team, in the summer still meaningfully supplemented by attacker Quincy Promes, who missed injured against Valencia as neighbors Neres. That, too, was one of the reasons for the departure - preparer Ziyech and executor Promes, which had played in recent weeks as a combination of success.

Ironically, now that Ajax is in the valley, it will be the weekend's top match in the league against AZ Alkmaar, the only team that can keep up with Ajax in the Eredivisie. Only consolation for Ajax: It's an away game.