Make AFC AJAX Great Again

[Sonny]

The end of the season was closer than we would have wanted, but the goals were reached. It was an impossible task to win the league from where you took over but this finish is the best you could have achieved.

I agree with Justincase, not having anyone near the top is not a good look for a club like Ajax. I know you like building the defense first and that looks to be the biggest need, allowing 41 goals compared to 22 for PSV is a huge difference.

Side note - Parrott! He was in a bad situation with Spurs and possibly not good enough for the Prem yet, but I'm glad to see he is continuing to score.

[Caesar]

Definitely needed that UCL Group Stage spot to build next season. Now, to get back to the title after a few years off the pace.

[Danimal5981]

[Danimal5981]

And the ironic thing is, I've written this article about a week ago, whereas yesterday Ajax announced Fred Grim indeed will have to stand aside for reasons that were described in the same fashion as in this article: the only difference is that in real life, Jordi Cruijff has moved his longtime friend, co-conspiritor and current second team coach Óscar Garcia forward, while in this story he installs me (with the experienced Albert Capellas backing me up).

[Agent]

Next season is going to be a movie. I'm calling it

[RMJH4]

That's the absolute maximum you could have achieved this season man! Excellent cup win. Looking forward to the offseason.

[Danimal5981]

[Danimal5981]

The consequences of Man City (Champions League), FC Porto (Europa League) and (finally!) Fiorentina (Conference League their 3rd final in 4 seasons but first ever win) is that Italy gets an extra slot in Europa League, while Portugal doesn't need to go through any qualifying rounds in Champions League. Manchester City also crowned itself as England's best and enters therefore as champion of England, not as title defenders in the Champions League (no added slots for England).


Also, according to Fair Play rules, Austria (+1 = 6 seedings) and Norway (+1 = 5 seedings) get an extra team. Poland makes a move up the UEFA Coeffitient Ranking and will provide five teams, of which two get a shot of making it into UEFA Champions League.

[Danimal5981]

Internazionale from Milan, Italy are the new best team in Europe. Despite not winning the Champions League trophy, their performances overall across the last five seasons is the best of all. Chelsea are about to fall down the order as they failed to qualify for any UEFA sanctioned tournament. The same applies to Ajax: the Dutch giants have qualified for the Champions League, but lost their coefficient points from the 2021-2022 season, in which they went through the (old style) group stage of UEFA Champions League without dropping a single point which gave them 22,000 points. Without this yield, the Amsterdam side will now start the 2026-2027 season as 57th ranked team (mind you, in summer of 2022 Ajax were ranked 13th...)

Recovery isn't just a thing for Ajax, but for The Netherlands as a whole. If the situation as is keeps on going, there will be less Dutch clubs in less preferabe positions. Portugal and Belgium have surpassed them and Türkye is giving chase - it has become absolutely paramount that Ajax and other Dutch teams improve their perfomances in Europe!

[JustinCase]

Always fun to see the development of coefficient points. Next season the Dutch number could suffer from the great 21/22 season to be removed from the table. Italy, on the other side, could benefit from having their subpar season taken away.

It's quite time-consuming to calculate all these things, but I do find it to be rewarding in the end. If only the game could calculate it and make such a list itself, for both club and national teams. That would be something.