Help to build a tactic

[coach vahid]

I need some help.

I'm lost. I want a create a tactic based on Ajax 433 philosophy. But i don't know what to do. I know there's plenty tactic on possession or for winning or whatever.

I would like to build this tactic like the preset tactics. Not recreate a season especially but more in terms "philosophy" and keep things that aren't negotiable. (Some people will say shorter passing and higher tempo, others much shorter passing and standard tempo, higher line...) This is my big problem. Maybe preset control possession or Tiki taka is good enough but i'm not sure. This is why i need consolidate my thoughts about the team instructions and the players roles.

Thank you.

[Lasson]

Read this quality thread. It will definitely help you out in regards to player roles and creating a balanced tactic. 

[coach vahid]

Thanks. I'm a fan of this thread too. But what i try to achieve is to built a preset style in terms of roles but also in team instructions.

[Drake]

As an Ajax fan of some 25+ years, I can tell you that there's no single "Ajax 433 philosophy". Arguably there never really was. Nowadays you can narrow it down to "playing attractive, technically pleasing attacking football with high defensive line and a lot of pressing".  There was a time (in 70s) when Ajax was really unique, particularly due to blurring of traditional roles and players who were able to play in more than 1 position on the field, but nowadays it is at least partly integrated into modern football by pretty much everyone. Ajax academy still puts ball skills in the first place for everyone, even defenders, as well as development of young players in various positions and roles and even lines - but that is, again, no longer unique in modern football.

But as far as tactics themselves go, there really isn't some "Ajax" way of playing, meaning that you could argue that there's a number of other clubs that by now have also been doing that - "playing attractive, technically pleasing attacking football with high defensive line and a lot of pressing" - for decades, because it's not exactly a narrow definition.

Ajax themselves have been playing quite differently in different eras. Michels' Ajax was a bit different to Kovac's Ajax, which was again different to Cruijff's Ajax, which was different to van Gaal's Ajax, which was really different to Koeman's or de Boer's or Bosz's or ten Hag's Ajax. The last four really were quite different to each other, too. People talk about "Ajax DNA", but if you ask me that's largely a misconception when it comes to management and tactics. People like Frank de Boer and Ronald Koeman supposedly have all the Ajax DNA that is possible to have - they come from the academy. But their styles of play are completely different and under Frank de Boer, despite domestic successes and some occasional good games in Europe we were playing some unbelievably boring football at times - prioritizing possession over attacking, sometimes having 80% of the ball and hardly making any meaningful shots on target. Bosz and ten Hag aren't even supposed to have any "Ajax DNA" at all - they haven't even ever played for the club (Bosz even played for Feyenoord), but both were highly successful in bringing back the flamboyant way of playing with attacking, taking risks and still getting great results.

Even the formation is largely a misconception at this point. A lot of people are saying "4-3-3 is sacred" while even under Michels and by his own words it sometimes came closer to 4-2-4 because he preferred for one midfieder to push forward in possession - again being ahead of his time in that. With Cruijff and van Gaal we weren't even playing a 4-3-3 in the same sense as before, we played a diamond-shaped 3-4-3 DM AM in possession which became 4-3-3 in defence. With Bosz and ten Hag  it was 4-2-3-1 which again was different to one another and under ETH we even played different versions of it in that successful CL season of 2017 and in later years.

TL;DR you can't have "Ajax 4-3-3" tactic because there's no such thing. You can try to emulate a particular manager's approach. Or if you want a unique, really pretty much Ajax-only formation, that wouldn't even be a 4-3-3 but a 3-4-3 DM AM :). Other than that - play with high DL, at least positive mentality, high intense pressing, avoid "specialist" one trick players that can't play the ball but are just very strong or very fast and possess no footballing intelligence - that's a very un-Ajax type indeed. Everything else is entirely up to you. Team instructions like width and tempo in particular were vastly different under different managers. Passing length you could argue gravitated on average towards shorter, but again it was different under different managers.  Player roles were very different with every manager too of course.

 

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Drake

[TheJanitor]

2 hours ago, Drake said:

As an Ajax fan of some 25+ years, I can tell you that there's no single "Ajax 433 philosophy".

What a cracking post 

 

[coach vahid]

Il y a 6 heures, Drake a dit :

As an Ajax fan of some 25+ years, I can tell you that there's no single "Ajax 433 philosophy". Arguably there never really was. Nowadays you can narrow it down to "playing attractive, technically pleasing attacking football with high defensive line and a lot of pressing".  There was a time (in 70s) when Ajax was really unique, particularly due to blurring of traditional roles and players who were able to play in more than 1 position on the field, but nowadays it is at least partly integrated into modern football by pretty much everyone. Ajax academy still puts ball skills in the first place for everyone, even defenders, as well as development of young players in various positions and roles and even lines - but that is, again, no longer unique in modern football.

But as far as tactics themselves go, there really isn't some "Ajax" way of playing, meaning that you could argue that there's a number of other clubs that by now have also been doing that - "playing attractive, technically pleasing attacking football with high defensive line and a lot of pressing" - for decades, because it's not exactly a narrow definition.

Ajax themselves have been playing quite differently in different eras. Michels' Ajax was a bit different to Kovac's Ajax, which was again different to Cruijff's Ajax, which was different to van Gaal's Ajax, which was really different to Koeman's or de Boer's or Bosz's or ten Haag's Ajax. The last four really were quite different to each other, too. People talk about "Ajax DNA", but if you ask me that's largely a misconception when it comes to management and tactics. People like Frank de Boer and Ronald Koeman supposedly have all the Ajax DNA that is possible to have - they come from the academy. But their styles of play are completely different and under Frank de Boer, despite domestic successes and some occasional good games in Europe we were playing some unbelievably boring football at times - prioritizing possession over attacking, sometimes having 80% of the ball and hardly making any meaningful shots on target. Bosz and ten Hag aren't even supposed to have any "Ajax DNA" at all - they haven't even ever played for the club (Bosz even played for Feyenoord), but both were highly successful in bringing back the flamboyant way of playing with attacking, taking risks and still getting great results.

Even the formation is largely a misconception at this point. A lot of people are saying "4-3-3 is sacred" while even under Michels and by his own words it sometimes came closer to 4-2-4 because he preferred for one midfieder to push forward in possession - again being ahead of his time in that. With Cruijff and van Gaal we weren't even playing a 4-3-3 in the same sense as before, we played a diamond-shaped 3-4-3 DM AM in possession which became 4-3-3 in defence. With Bosz and ten Hag  it was 4-2-3-1 which again was different to one another and under ETH we even played different versions of it in that successful CL season of 2017 and in later years.

TL;DR you can't have "Ajax 4-3-3" tactic because there's no such thing. You can try to emulate a particular manager's approach. Or if you want a unique, really pretty much Ajax-only formation, that wouldn't even be a 4-3-3 but a 3-4-3 DM AM :). Other than that - play with high DL, at least positive mentality, high intense pressing, avoid "specialist" one trick players that can't play the ball but are just very strong or very fast and possess no footballing intelligence - that's a very un-Ajax type indeed. Everything else is entirely up to you. Team instructions like width and tempo in particular were vastly different under different managers. Passing length you could argue gravitated on average towards shorter, but again it was different under different managers.  Player roles were very different with every manager too of course.

 

 

Thanks.