Chapter 31
As the Dutch champion for four consecutive seasons, Ajax lost to Zwolle, which ranked 11th last season, in the Super Cup, and instantly became the target of criticism from the Dutch media.
Almost overnight, all Dutch media criticized Ajax's performance in the transfer market and the players' lazy attitude in the game.
Even the Amsterdam Daily, which has always spoken for the club, euphemistically criticized the players for being too confident on the field, playing too casually in the first half, and not taking immediate countermeasures after losing the ball in the second half.
In the last ten minutes, they wanted to exert their strength, but were worn down by the well-prepared Zwolle.
In fact, the Dutch media's criticism of Ajax is not nitpicking or pursuing sales, but a total outbreak of dissatisfaction accumulated over time.
After the Dutch Super Cup, the Telegraph counted Ajax's performance in the past four seasons.
In the past four seasons, Ajax has won four consecutive Dutch Eredivisie titles, but in addition to four Dutch Eredivisie titles, Ajax has only won one Dutch Super Cup in other competitions.
That is to say, behind the seemingly glorious four consecutive championships, Ajax did not gain dominance in the Netherlands.
At least in a single-game match, Ajax does not have the ability to win.
In the past four seasons of the Dutch Cup, Ajax has not won even one championship.
In the Dutch Cup final last season, Ajax faced Zwolle, which was ranked tenth outside the league, after winning the Eredivisie two rounds in advance.
Before the final, almost everyone thought that this game would be a bully.
Unexpectedly, Ajax, who had a full team and no pressure from other competitions, lost to the opponent 1-4 in the final, shocking everyone.
The Telegraph even used a sharp comment that the reason why Ajax dominated the Eredivisie for four consecutive seasons was not because of how well they performed, but because their opponents were more unstable and lost more.
After giving such an evaluation, the Telegraph pointed the finger directly at the European war.
In the past four seasons, Ajax has held the only direct entry to the Champions League group stage in the Eredivisie, and has repeated the drama of finishing third in the group stage and then going home in the first round of the Europa League knockout stage for four consecutive seasons.
Because of Ajax's weak performance in the Champions League, the Eredivisie's ranking in Europe has been declining.
Before Ajax became the Eredivisie overlord, the second place in the Eredivisie could at least directly play in the fourth round of the Champions League play-offs, and if they won, they could participate in the Champions League.
However, because the Eredivisie's European ranking has declined, the second place in the Eredivisie can only start from the third round of the play-offs, which further increases the difficulty for Eredivisie teams to obtain European points.
In this season's Champions League play-offs, Feyenoord was eliminated by Besiktas in the third round. The Telegraph even believes that this season Ajax is likely to be at the bottom of the Champions League group and will not even have the opportunity to participate in the Europa League.
This season's Champions League group group has been released, and Ajax is in the same group as Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and APOEL.
The result of the draw has directly sentenced Ajax to "death". How can such Ajax compete with the two European giants?
Facing the weakest team in the group, the Cypriot overlord APOEL, the Dutch media dare not guarantee Ajax.
Although APOEL comes from a small country league, this small league team has a much better record in the Champions League in recent years than Ajax.
In the 2011-2012 Champions League group stage, APOEL, which participated in the Champions League for the first time, performed very well in the group stage, eliminated two old powerhouses, Porto and Shakhtar Donetsk, and advanced to the top 16 of the Champions League.
For a small team with a total value of less than 5 million euros, such a result is already impressive enough.
But what is surprising is that APOEL faced Lyon, which won the first place in the group, in the top 16. After losing away, it defeated the opponent at home and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Champions League through a penalty shootout.
It was not until they met Real Madrid that APOEL stopped moving forward.
APOEL made it through the play-offs this season and once again made it to the Champions League group stage.
Facing such a tough opponent, the Dutch media themselves did not believe that Ajax would win, because Ajax's lineup this season was too bad.
After winning the Eredivisie title last season, a total of 9 players left the Ajax first team, including the center forward "Big De Jong" who scored 20 goals last season, the core of the defense Blind and the main left back Dicks, three absolute main players.
The Ajax first team only invested 3.7 million euros in the transfer market, bought 1 player through transfer, rented 2 players, and the other 5 players were all from the U21 team..
Even with the addition of U21 players Muric and Onana, Ajax's spending in the transfer market this season is only 4.5 million euros.
Compared with the transfer income of more than 30 million euros in the transfer market, Ajax's investment can be described as stingy.
The Telegraph even ridiculed Ajax's recruitment strength as comparable to the mid-to-lower-level Bundesliga teams, and it would only rank 21st in the Premier League.
The United Times, also a well-known Dutch media, believes that Ajax's behavior over the years is consuming its own rich heritage.
The paper pointed out that Ajax has been a foundry for the five major leagues in recent years. They have become accustomed to training players in a low-cost way and then selling the best players to European giants.
The report believes that since Ajax began to play the profit model of earning the difference in the transfer market, the club's personnel turnover has gradually become more frequent.
The insecurity brought about by the rapid flow of players has further affected the club's youth training players, causing many players to no longer regard long-term service for Ajax as a career plan.
The United Times believes that the departure of captain Vermaelen has turned on the switch for players to leave the team. Once more and more players have good data, they can't wait to transfer to the top five leagues.
Even if Ajax wants to keep a player for a long time, the player will seek a transfer by refusing to renew the contract.
In this way, Ajax has to sell both unfinished players and players who are determined to leave.
Five years ago, Ajax's best players would only join European giants.
But as the club loses control of transfers, more and more Ajax players think that even if they don't play for giants, as long as they can make money, it counts.
Once players have a greater obsession with income, they will use various methods to reduce transfer fees and get more income in negotiations.
The newspaper not only criticized Ajax's transfer operations, but also questioned the U21 team's large-scale handling of players over 20 years old and the cold behavior of not giving non-talented players the opportunity to grow.
They also interviewed the former captain of the U21, Bass, who also took this opportunity to complain about Ajax's "unfair treatment" of him.
Interestingly, De Boer, Stam and Overmars, three famous players, didn't care about the media reports at all. They all had an attitude of "you know nothing" and "you can say whatever you want" when facing the media.
It was the young players of U21 who were demoralized in the face of the media's overwhelming reports.
Young people!
It's normal to not be able to cope with the pressure from the outside world.
For Sun Yu, who has experienced the Internet era, these things are just a drizzle.
The first round of the Dutch Eredivisie is just around the corner. Ajax U21's first opponent said in an interview: "No matter what the Ajax U21 players will become in the future, it is difficult for a group of 19-year-olds to achieve any results in the professional league."
"This team is younger and more fragile. I believe most teams can find a way to beat them."
This sentence can be translated into human language as - Ajax U21 is a big gift package.
In the pre-match press conference, Stam didn't even bother to respond to the other party.
Under the continuous requests of the reporter, Stam turned to Sun Yu beside him and said: "Please respond to this question."
Sun Yu: "..."
You are too lazy to confront others, so you want me to be your thug, right?