In an age of Big Clubs & inferiority complexes, Ajax sensationally turned over Juventus & sent a message of hope to all small ambitious clubs. For every complacent Italian with stupid hair, there was a Dutchman a yard quicker & a stomach hungrier. What can we learn from them?
Just glad to see the last of the 'Facist Big Three' ( Juve, Real and Bayern) be evicted from the competition.
Eat Cheese, drink Heineken & ride a bike. Great result. I always try & root for the underdog in these competitions & more so than ever in leagues all across Europe, anyone can beat anyone. I'm not frightened about us playing Arsenal anymore. Never thought I'd see the day where I would think that.
I celebrated their winning goal with just a little less zest than I’d usually reserve for one of our goals. Sensational performance. It’s a shame their squad will be dismantled this summer.
That they've got some players we might be able to afford to sign? That's what we big clubs do when minnows get some success
For sure, De Jong has already agreed a £75m move to Barca. De Ligt will also most likely leave (Barca would suit him perfectly as well) for a similar fee, imagine Neres and Ziyech will have plenty of offers over the summer also.
In historic terms and in Holland they are a massive club (and are definitely still the biggest in Holland) - however, Holland has been left behind in terms of other countries TV rights, which means they basically have very limited income. So whilst in historic terms Ajax are massive, resources-wise they are minnows compared to the might of the rest of the teams left in the CL. Their starting 11 that beat Juventus (over 2 legs!) to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League cost €50m. That's less than our starting 11 to put that into perspective!
Interesting fact: until the mid 60s, Ajax managers were mainly from the UK. More interesting fact: after the mid 60s, Ajax became good, exceedingly good.
One of my bugbears about this country. I'm 49 and the country officially became metric in 1965. Throughout my education and career I've used nothing but metric measurements - why are our road signs still in miles and yards (for speed and distance) but height/weight restrictions are in metres? Orwell's old adage about about replacing the pint (from '1984'): Well bollox to that. I had no problems drinking half litres of beer in the Baltic states and 'ein Maß' (or two) in various German festivals.
5 of their starting 11 are academy products - so placing emphasis on your academy and actually giving them game-time is a good start - De Ligt (who scored the winner last night) is a 19 year old CB who'll likely move for upwards of 65m in the summer, this is his 2nd season as a key member of the Ajax first team, with another season before where he played 11 or so games - meaning he broke into their team at 16/17. Clever scouting is the next - their front 3 were all bought and make up most of the squad cost (€11m-12m each). Funnily enough Neres was their 2nd choice target after we snatched Richarlison away from them, Tadic was bought from Southampton and now looks a completely different player to the one that understandably strugged under Hughes. Their goalkeeper cost €150k after spending 5 years in the Barca academy and failing to break through (also now linked to a 20-30m switch back to Barca). Sadly the first option is probably too risky for us (and we already do the 2nd), a club like Watford can't really be starting a 16-year-old in the PL - the risks are too high. However I've said numerous times since the Pozzos took over that a club in Belgium/Holland would be the perfect "starter" club to act as a nursery for us and Udinese - Wilmot for instance wouldn't be on Udinese's bench but would be starting every game (albeit in an easier league) in a league where the football is decent. Routes into European competitions are relatively easy as well which gives them a further test of their ability. Sending the best academy kids there would be a better shout then loaning them to Wealdstone or some crappy conference team where they get clamped every time they touch the ball. It's the ideal next step.
Whilst imperial measures are less fathomable from a base 10 point of view, they lend themselves better as measures to certain things. A pint vs 0.57 litre A man's height at 6ft rather than 1m something or his waist at 34 inches rather than 90 odd centimetres. 70 mph is far better than 112.6 something. A quarterpounder sounds better than a 0.113 kg burger I tend to flip between metric and imperial depending on what suits the job at hand and I'm younger than you (Just) Money on the other hand is a complete mystery to be. Paying for something with thee halfpennies and a farthing is just bonkers.
I'll stand corrected, but I don't think that is strictly true. 1965 saw the government introduce a formal policy supporting metrification - but it was entirely voluntary. They created a quango four years later to promote it, but it wasn't until the late 70s that they started issuing statutory instruments making it mandatory, but in certain sectors only - thanks, Leavers will be delighted to know, to the EEC. And that's as far as it got. I'm surprised that you say you used only metric measurements throughout your education - as far as I'm aware, it's still compulsory to teach both, albeit the only imperial measurements now taught are the few still in common usage.
Sounds like our scouting is at a similar level to Ajax's. Around London I suppose all top talent will quickly funnel into the big 3 clubs at a young age or 'do a Sancho' in their early teens. Being able to offer game time in Europe sounds a huge asset to keep the Sanchos & to continue attracting young Brazilian kids. Any thoughts on which Belg/NL clubs? One with a realistic prospect of Europe, I would think. How much use do Chelsea make of Arnhem?
It's very, very messy there was a major attempt pushed by parliament to go metric and decimalise everything in 1909 (with the full support of parliament) but WWI put that on hold... I seem to remember wiki's pretty good on the history... I have never, ever, ever been taught to use imperial measurements of any sort - although one of my earliest memories was asking my engineer grandfather what the numbers next to the dinosaurs in my ladybird book meant (their lengths in metres and feet) I would have been 4-5. The only time I have worked with dual units was during my PhD when, because some of my 'official opposition' were physicists I had to give the results in Hartree and, for them, Rydberg atomic units - fark knows why. In fact from what I remember of school the actually used SI units - m/s for velocity sticks in my mind. Even when working with my dad as his plumber's mate I was introduced to the concepts of metric pipe diameters 1/2" and 3/4" which were replaced with the not even the same metric equivalents of, the bonkers, 22mm and 28mm... The road sign issue is very easily solved - when each sign is replaced how about it has the metric equivalent (rounded up or down to the nearest multiple of 5 as appropriate) in brackets clearly marked with the corresponding unit (km, m or kph).
Depends what we want it for, if we want it purely for qualifying for Europe (which is always a gamble!) it's a bit harder to try and work out a club, if we were to buy one just for nurturing youth and letting Europe happen organically then it becomes a bit easier, I know it's a game but I went into a fair bit of research for my Football Manager game where I was starting a multi-club model like what we do, but started from scratch in Belgium. I deduced Royal Antwerp were the best shout (then in the 2nd division of Belgium). Seems they've now been promoted and aren't far away from qualifying for the Europa League (you can see how I reached choosing them here: https://www.thehighertempopress.com/2016/09/taste-the-feeling-fc-coca-cola-1-0/). Belgium seems to be *the* place for clubs buying other clubs recently with Leicester (OH Leuven), PSG (Eupen), Monaco (Cercle Brugge) all buying clubs in Belgium in the last few years. Chelsea use Vitesse loads: 3 players on loan there this season and 4 last season (including Mason Mount who's now having a decent season at Derby as the next stage in his development), although I don't think any of the players that have gone to Vitesse have managed to break into the Chelsea team yet, but I think that's more indicative of Chelsea rather than the players!
