Draakon
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Posts posted by Draakon
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November 2032
Fixtures and Results
November doesn’t surprise us with much - first the trip to Austria, followed by three home games (that get gradually more difficult when we host PSV Eindhoven and AS Monaco in one week) and we close the month with a trip to small town of Waalwijk and play against outsiders RKC.
We started our match against Sturm Graz with some confidence and I felt that we could rotate a little bit, so Jermoumi and van Axel Dongen were rested, along with Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson. Perhaps because of that we found the first half more difficult than it should have been. Ja-Ryong Kim was the most active player from our team, creating chances and moving well with the ball and in 30’ we had the best chance of the first half when Kim found Quenten Hose with a cross, but Hose headed it over from just a few metres. Peter Misidjan tried his luck from just outside of the area, but his attempt struck the post and went out, so it remained goalless at half-time. Kim continued to cause problems for Graz defenders and in one set piece situation he was brought down in the box, so Kenneth Taylor gave us the lead from the spot and substitute Koen Verlijsdonk scored his first goal of the season to make sure we return with all three points. Ja-Ryong Kim earned a lot of praise for his performance (and attention from the South Korean manager who was on the stands) - he made 6 key passes, 9 dribbles and earned us a penalty - but the player of the match was Ognjen Rajkovic who had an excellent game defensively - winning most of the duels and two key headers.
AC Milan and AS Monaco made a 1:1 draw in the other game and so this win made sure that we qualify from the group, although there’s two more games to go.
I expected to record a comfortable win over Sparta Rotterdam, but it wasn’t the case as we battled for a difficult 2:1 victory at Johan Cruijff Arena. Sparta’s game plan seemed to be working better at first and we had to make an early change as van Axel Dongen came off with injury after just four minutes. Sparta got the first half-chance of the match, but Olivier Aertssen got back to make an important block. We struggled to create decent chances in the first half, but a penalty gave us the lead late in the first half and John Meeuwis wasted a great chance in injury time, so we were leading 1:0 at half-time and the end of the period offered some encouragement. We had looked error-prone in defence (perhaps because Olivier Aertssen and Rik Vos were untested partnership in our central defence), so in 53’ Rody Hoegee equalised for Sparta with a simple finish. Prince Aning took blame for the goal, as his missed interception contributed heavily to this conceded chance. We tried to find the winner and I had to make the changes I didn’t really want to make - sending out Kenneth Taylor and Claidel Muringen - but it didn’t seem to work out. Taylor wasted a free kick from a a promising position and chances were still rare . Sparta’s game plan looked simple enough - their Finnish goalkeeper Kimmo Leskinen delivered a long kick and saw what happened. What happened in 83’ was that Rik Vos missed his header and Toni Dangelmayr managed to turn away from him and was one-on-one against Riswan Sinaga. His attempt went well wide, but I witnessed another moment exactly like this two minutes later and this time our goalkeeper made a great save to keep things level. I was furious with Vos at this point, because as a centre-back you can’t make such simple mistakes in defence. In the end it worked out well for us - Ja-Ryong Kim delivered a cross to the six yard box and Quenten Hose was there to score with a tap-in. A late winner and three points to the table, but our performance had a lot to desire in both attack and defence. We created four clear cut chances in the game and our xG was 3.07, but we struggled to get the second goal. At the same time our defence looked way too error-prone through those ninety minutes, so little to praise after the match. Quenten Hose earned the plaudits - a foul against him got us the penalty in the first half, his late winner secured us three points and in between he managed to spread out six key passes and be the best player in our attack.
We were favourites for the Topper derby, but the international break during the past 12 days had left the team a bit tired and I had some difficult squad selection decisions to make, because we had a difficult AS Monaco match coming up in midweek. Kenneth Taylor featured for Holland and looked tired. Ja-Ryong Kim too (and for him I need always consider that long travel to South Korea and back takes an extra toll and adds fatigue). Can Tas’ morale didn’t look good enough to start him in a derby match and we were without van Axel Dongen, so I decided to go all in against PSV and rotate players against AS Monaco (hoping that Frenchmen will come with fairly defensive tactics anyway).
The first half was an even battle, but we got lucky in 16’ when Kim crossed the ball and PSV’s centre-back Valeriy Bondar got his foot to it, but directed it into his own goal - a lucky break for us. We seemed to take initiative around 30’ and Quenten Hose doubled our lead with a placed shot after John Meeuwis found him with a lovely through ball (that’s why he should be playing as a CFa!). PSV had an opportunity to score from a penalty late in the first half after Rajkovic fouled their midfielder in a set piece situation, but Riswan Sinaga showed good reactions to save it and we went to half-time with a 2:0 lead. I have to say that we were a bit fortunate in this first half and a lot of things went our way - an own goal, a missed penalty - so PSV could say that they played well enough as an away team, but were unlucky not to get a goal. They tried harder in the second half and I needed to make changes. Ja-Ryong Kim came off at half-time, because he looked now already too tired and Anass Sarpong came on. Quenten Hose pulled something in 52’ and I took him off as a precaution, because I didn’t want to lose another winger. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson came on to the AMR position and he really changed the game, scoring a beautiful goal on a counter (a lovely daisy cutter from 21 metres) and added another one later (another through ball from John Meeuwis). That destroyed PSV Eindhoven. Our opponents could say that according to xG it was a fairly even match, but the scoreboard says otherwise and our fans went home delighted. That win sent us back to the top of the table and it adds to our confidence after positive results in the past two weeks. Riswan Sinaga was voted for the player of the match because of his crucial penalty save and our clean sheet.
Our home game against AS Monaco offered one of the most forgettable first half ever (at least according to TV commentators), because not a lot happened, but we managed to score from a set piece (Meeuwis on target) and had a narrow lead at half time. In the second half we managed to get a slightly better control over the match and when Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and Koen Verlijsdonk came on, they quickly combined for our second goal. It looked like the game was decided, but AS Monaco scored from a corner and tried to initiate their come-back. However Hlynsson’s second through ball to Verlijsdonk in injury time decided the matter - a pretty good 3:1 win at home.
Newly-promoted RKC Waalwijk should have been easy prey for us, but they had a new manager for that match, new formation as well (that our scouts couldn’t predict) and at first they offered fierce resistance to us at Mandemakers Stadion. Our defence in turn looked rather error prone and so we allowed them to build too many dangerous attacks, until from 30’ we had more control in midfield and finished the first half with two goals from Quenten Hose, who stepped up and looked like the composure player in attack. Koen Verlijsdonk added our third goal in the second half and it looked like game over, but RKC continued to create good chances from counter-attacks and Riswan Sinaga had to make several brilliant saves to keep his clean sheet. It remained 3:0 and looked like a comfortable win, but RKC’s xG was above 1.00 and they probably felt that they should have scored at least once in the second half. I wasn’t at all happy with our defence and the second half was full of complacency from some players, so despite the result not too much to praise.
Tactics and Players
I had no reason to change our tactics, because at home we’ll start with our usual positive 4-2-3-1 against anyone. It means my preparation for those games has been quite easy. At the same time I’ve turned more attention to players’ training ratings (and offered some constructive criticism, even making my squad selection decisions based on player ratings).
We’ve been relatively injury free in the last 1-2 seasons, but that lucky streak came to an end in the match against Sparta Rotterdam - one hard tackle was all that it took and Amourricho van Axel Dongen had to come off on a stretcher. My medical staff later confirmed it’s the dreaded cruciate ligament injury that will keep him out for 6-9 months. It’s safe to say van Axel Dongen’s season is over and we could expect him back around next August. That’s a big loss not only because of his quality, but also because he could play in both right and left flank in different roles and his versatility is difficult to replace. All the players were really compassionate and tried to make him feel better, but I could notice Quenten Hose and Anass Sarpong working hard in training and being more alert, because they probably know it’s the best chance for them to impress this season.
Can Tas voiced his unhappiness with his lack of starts. At the moment it’s pretty much an isolated issue, but I hope to involve him more in the DLPd role so hopefully he’ll get over it. For now, I’m afraid that I have to accept that his morale is affected by that disappointment. That row escalated even further in November when some of the clubs from Ukraine and Portugal made bids for him - I would be prepared to let him go, but to get around £15m for a young player who is worth £20-25m seems like a giveaway. On the other hand it looks quite difficult to rebuild that relationship that was damaged after some poor conversations between me and the player, so in the long term he’s perhaps not willing to play for Ajax and I need to move him forward anyway.
November international break went well, although I received news from some minor knocks and traumas that our players suffered in training while with their international squads. At least everybody returned fully fit to our next match against PSV Eindhoven and Richard Svec looked especially happy because he made his debut for Slovakia in this window. A great moment for our 18 years old left-back. Estonian right-back Mark Mõttus scored his first goal for his country in a 2:2 draw with Bosnia & Herzegovina.
When I look at our team stats it seems goals and assists have been distributed nicely between players. John Meeuwis has scored nine goals so far, Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and van Axel Dongen have seven to their name, but van Axel Dongen is injured, so there will be no additional stats coming for him. Kenneth Taylor carried us a lot at the start of the season, but now Quenten Hose has taken over and also Koen Verlijsdonk scored his first goals of the season in November - the fact that all those players step up in turn and perform well gives a lot of confidence, actually.
Player of the Month: Quenten Hose - the right winger has really taken over after van Axel Dongen injury. He scored four goals in November and has one assist to his name from those five games, but his average rating is 7.90 in the last five matches, showing incredible form.
Goal of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson vs. PSV Eindhoven - a lovely daisy cutter into the bottom corner, taken from 21 metres
News item in my inbox confirms we’re still the best developing club in Europe and no less than 89 of our former players are currently playing in the top five leagues of Europe.
Eredivisie
Good results in November have brought us back to the table and we have a three point lead at the moment. The rest of contenders seem to struggle a bit - Feyenoord is without a win in three games, PSV lost three in a row in November and FC Utrecht has collected a lot of draws. Vitesse look the most dangerous from this bunch.
The PEC Zwolle board made the decision and appointed former RKC Waalwijk manager Ron Elsen as their new head coach. Interesting decision from him, because Zwolle is clearly more struggling this season and are currently 17th, so it’s a bit unclear why he wanted to make that switch, although I agree that Zwolle is a bigger club with a slightly higher reputation at this point. RKC Waalwijk in turn hired Hasan Kilic as their new manager.
Champions League
We’re leading our group, but to finish first and get the first seed for the knockout round we need a point against AC Milan in the last round. The match in Amsterdam finished 3:2 and because games between two clubs are the first tie-breakers, a 0:1 defeat at San Siro wouldn’t be good enough for us.
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I don't have much experience in all FM-s (I've skipped some versions) but in FM22 it's evident that positive mentality tends to lead to goals and wins games. And at least in FM22 it usually is that AI teams play with more attacking mentality at home and are cautious/defensive in away games, sometimes WAY too defensive. It's shows especially in Champions League where I can beat almost any team at home. I play as Ajax and have nowehere the quality of the teams like Real Madrid or Bayern, but when they come to Amsterdam with their cautious/balanced mentality, I usually beat them with my positive 4-2-3-1.
However, at home they're positive too (sometimes even attacking mentality) and I have to change my whole setup to get something out of the game and not to be destroyed 0:5 or something similar. Going positive vs. positive against the team with a better quality is just suicidal.
In conclusion, the change might be easily in how AI approaches games against you (especially home vs. away games)
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That's the way I always play my Ajax save!
But I've made a promise that if a big club comes with a good bid I always let the star players go as well.
Definitely follow how things turn out for you.
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October 2032
Fixtures and Results
The Eredivisie fixture list offers some tricky away games in Alkmaar and Groningen, but overall it’s not too difficult - five games in October and only one Champions League fixture - a must win game at home with Sturm Graz.
A defeat in the Noord-Hollandse derby finished our 22 match unbeaten run. We took the lead in 18’ - Ja Ryong Kim worked well to win the ball back, found Meeuwis with a quick pass and the forward scored with an excellent finish to make it 1:0. AZ reacted quickly and equalised three minutes later when Prince Aning let their Romanian right winger Andrei Preda to get away and finished their chance. Preda had a great game, unfortunately for us, because his header in 41’ gave AZ the lead. It didn’t improve in the second half, because it looked like AZ controlled things completely and grew more confident with their lead, so we struggled in attack, but all attempts to find the equaliser were fruitless. We finished the match with 0.88 xG and although we had 10 corners in the game, we couldn’t get any of them on target. Poor performance and a poor result.
The AZ defeat had shaken our confidence a little and perhaps our fans’ too, because there were just over 54,000 spectators present for our next home game against FC Twente, in a stadium with more than 62,000 capacity. Our confidence clearly was shaken, because FC Twente scored an early goal with a header from point blank range and almost added another before ten minutes were played. Fortunately, Anass Sarpong (who started on the right wing) looked composed and his equaliser in 30’ brought us back into the game. van Axel Dongen headed in right before half-time to make it 2:1 before the break. FC Twente’s Bryan de Kaster scored his second goal of the night from a counter in 62’ - completely against the run of play - but at least then we reacted well and started to put our opponents under pressure. John Meeuwis wasted a couple of half-chances, but he finally scored in 82’ to restore our lead and after Quenten Hose’s volley in 88’ it was game over. Hose was our player of the game - he came on in 72’, assisted our third goal, scored himself and turned the game around. Not the best performance from us, but at least things are looking better in attack and the fighting spirit is still there. Defensive mistakes should be avoided, though.
The home game with Sturm Graz should have been the easiest in our Champions League group, but somehow we struggled with finishing during the entire game. We missed some half-chances in the first half already, but in 42’ John Meeuwis showed his mojo - Peter Misidjan found him on a counter with a long ball and Meeuwis scored with an excellent finish to break the deadlock, but then missed a 100% chance in injury time, so we had just a narrow 1:0 lead at half-time. And it got worse in the second half - two more misses from Meeuwis and then he hit the crossbar from a completely open position. I finally took him off and sent out Koen Verlijsdonk, who continued the work that Meeuwis had started - it means: missing chances. another decent opportunity went wide and then from a clear cut chance he only managed to hit the post. It finished 1:0 and we had the win, but we should have scored four or five goals easily - we had 4 clear cut chances in this game and had 3.67 xG, but just one goal to show from all those opportunities. At least our poor finishing didn’t cost us points in the table.
We started against FC Groningen without our best striker John Meeuwis who had a minor problem with his knee and I thought it would be wiser to keep him on the bench as a precaution. Koen Verlijsdonk started in attack. It didn’t begin well for us, as FC Groningen took the lead in 15’ and at half-time we had just one half-chance to show for our efforts. A lot of things didn’t go our way on the pitch and players looked anxious, so that added to the pressure. In 69’ I finally took the risk and sent Meeuwis out and eventually that paid off - he missed one good chance in 84’, but was alert enough in the final minute when FC Groningen’s goalkeeper Jens Craenmehr dropped the ball, and scored a late equaliser for us. A disappointing game from us (just 9/4 shooting - Groningen defender quite well against us), but at least we rescued a point and who knows how important that could be at the end of the season.
The last match with FC Emmen finally offered some good football and a convincing 3:0 win. FC Emmen were promoted to Eredivisie this Summer, but they surprised everybody with their strong start in August. However, that good run started to fade away in September and October, and we didn’t have too many problems against them. Kenneth Taylor scored from the spot in the first half to give us a 1:0 lead after the first period. We played well enough and created ourselves a few chances, but I was rather upset with referee Dennis Higler, who had shown our players three yellow cards for four fouls before half-time. A bit biassed? We didn’t allow it to become a problem and started the second half really strong - Olivier Aertssen scored a beautiful goal in 47’ - a bit unorthodox one for a centre-back. He was in the box for a corner, started to run back to defence, but we regained possession and Hlynsson found him with a pass just outside of the area. Unmarked and unopposed, he took the ball into the box and fired it into the top corner - a striker’s goal from a centre-back!
van Axel Dongen scored our third with a nice volley and Kenneth Taylor was unlucky just to hit the post with a free kick from a promising position. Really good win to give some confidence back after a few poor results, but at the same time I have to admit we couldn’t prevent complacency from creeping in after our third goal.
Tactics and Players
I haven’t changed much tactically, just tweaked some minor personal instructions - mainly switching John Meeuwis’ role between PFa and CFa to change our shape a little in attack.
The players have been fit and we haven’t had serious injury problems so far, some precautions with rotation certainly helps.
We haven’t had problems tactically, but we have struggled to find confidence - especially in away games and that has cost us some points in recent weeks. Several players are looking anxious and nervous on the pitch and my sideline shouts are not always improving things. It looks like our leaders lack the ability to handle pressure and that affects our football, but I hope that the last win over FC Emmen will help to get things back on track.
I have been able to distribute playing time evenly, but there are just a few unhappy faces in the squad. The first one is Can Tas who has not played too many games in central defence and after seeing him struggling (again) against tall strikers in the FC Twente game I decided that it was enough. I’ll start to retrain him as a DLPd, because he will always be a liability with just 9 for a jumping reach, but his passing is good and vision is decent enough and with 16 for tackling he could become a good defensive midfielder/playmaker.
The second worried player is Claidel Muringen - the young midfielder is still waiting for a new contract, but we haven’t been able to reach an agreement with his agent who expects no less than £26,000 p/w for a 22 years old squad player. A little bit too much for my liking, but the parties are not willing to compromise and back down, so talks have broken up several times now. Hopefully we’ll sign a new deal before Christmas, because Muringen is a talented player and I’d like to keep him in Ajax.
Player of the Month: John Meeuwis - our striker has found his goalscoring boots this season. He scored four goals in October, including the winner against Sturm Graz and late equaliser against FC Groningen. At the moment he’s leading the Eredivisie goal scoring table with seven league goals to his name.
Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. Sturm Graz - Meeuwis has scored a few technical goals in October, but the winner against Sturm Graz will be the pick of the fans.
Eredivisie
We have dropped some points in October, but so has FC Utrecht. The top of the table is really tight and Vitesse have climbed their way up to the top after ten match days, but us, FC Utrecht and others are really close.
At the bottom of the table it looks like Almere City and PEC Zwolle are the weakest of the bunch. The Zwolle board reacted promptly and sacked Colin Balkenstein before the end of October in an attempt to turn things around.
Champions League
Half of the games have been played and we look in a really good place at the moment, five points above AS Monaco and we should qualify from the group without problems
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September 2032
Fixtures and Results
September offers two difficult Champions League matches. In Eredivisie we host FC Utrecht (who has been superb at the start of the season) and also have two potentially tricky away games with PEC Zwolle and Heracles Almelo, so it’s not so easy to pick correct starting line-ups for those matches - they could be easy canters, but we can drop cheap points there if we’re not careful.
We resumed our Eredivisie campaign with a trip to Zwolle. Fortunately players had no injuries after the international break, so I could plan ahead and select the ones that play in league matches and who are battling the Champions League fixtures. We had a fairly easy time against PEC Zwolle - a penalty and another goal from a free kick gave us a strong 2:0 lead at half-time and although we were caught napping by Zwolle in 53’ and they made it 1:2, Zwolle’s Marius Dieterle received his second yellow card four minutes later and John Meeuwis quickly reinstated our two-goal lead. The second half after the red card looked very comfortable for us. Zwolle made 30 fouls in this match and it was their undoing - our first half goals came from set pieces and the red card took away their hopes for a come-back. Kenneth Taylor was again our best player with a goal and assist.
We were bold enough to go against AC Milan with our standard positive 4-2-3-1 setup at Johan Cruijff Arena and it paid a lot of dividends in our Champions League opener. We created some good chances in the first half and when van Axel Dongen gave us the lead with a simple tap-in after Aning found him in front of the goal with a cross, I felt that it was no less than we deserved after our first half performance. van Axel Dongen scored his second goal just a few minutes into the second half and three minutes later Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson showed his class by turning away from his defender and finding the net with a lovely finish. In 55’ it was 3:0 ,but then I made substitutions and our rhythm disappeared - Rafael Leao got a goal back for AC Milan with a thunderous strike in 86’ and Liel Nahmias scored their second in injury time with a swerving shot from 22 metres. It got really nervous for a moment, but it was too late for AC Milan - we held onto our 3:2 lead despite conceding two late goals. I was obviously delighted with the result and our performance against the big team.
Before the fifth matchday both us and FC Utrecht had won the first four games, so the game between two leaders at Johan Cruijff Arena should have been a treat, but it ended with a goalless draw. We had the best opportunities in the first half - Amourricho van Axel Dongen missed from a near post and then saw his penalty being saved by the FC Utrecht goalkeeper (who was later named the best player of the game). Our opponents had better moments after the break - they hit the woodwork twice and Ansgar Knauff had a one-on-one moment with Riswan Sinaga in 85’ just to send his shot well over the bar. In the end it was a more-less fair result that retained the status quo in the table, but I was still a little bit frustrated, because I felt that if we had taken our chances in the first half and got better control in the match we could have won this. And if we couldn’t win at home, the away game will be a bit tougher to get three points from.
Away game against Heracles was a potentially tricky one, because we were against a solid top-half team at Erve Asito. For the second game in a row we couldn’t score and it ended with a goalless draw. We had a couple of good chances in the first half - most notably Quenten Hose’s chance after Rajkovic found him with a long ball forward - but our finishing wasn’t up to task and Heracles looked disciplined enough. Peter Misidjan had a poor game as AMCa and our full-backs couldn’t find teammates with their crosses. Disappointing.
We finished September with a trip to Monaco. Mediterranean weather welcomed us with 26C degrees and Delio Onnis Stadium was packed with 27,151 fans, so there wasn’t a single empty seat on the stands. I used our balanced 4-2-3-1 edition that we tested in pre-season and honestly, the first half couldn’t have been better. Amourricho van Axel Dongen scored with a beautiful volley and Hlynsson doubled our lead after the AS Monaco goalkeeper pushed Ja-Ryong Kim’s cross right at his feet. At half-time I had every reason to praise the team, because tactically we were spot on, defence looked solid and we were clinical with our chances. However, the second half didn’t go our way - Scott McTominay produced an outstanding screamer from 24 metres to get AS Monaco back into the game and in 80’ their centre-back headed in from a free kick to equalise. John Meeuwis had a decent look in 89’ to win the match for us, but his close range header went over. Really harsh second half - I was disappointed with the draw after leading 2:0 at half-time, but I have to say that Monaco got really lucky in the second half - they didn’t get a proper chance in the game and to score two goals from almost out of nowhere had nothing to do with our performance. Just individual brilliance and some luck on their side. But on the larger scale of things I think that this draw from the away game is not a bad result in our Champions League group.
Tactics and Players
Tactically the main question for me was how to approach the Monaco game. The balanced Champions League setup seemed to work well, at least until the attacking players used their chances well - we are not creating much with those instructions and our number of shots could be well below ten, but at least in defence we look well organised and at the same time didn’t look under real pressure from Monaco. So, the next test with that setup will be at San Siro against AC Milan.
Attacking players will get some stick from me for their poor performances in September. After the AC Milan match we weren’t good enough in attack. Actually, it seemed that right when we had to rotate the line-up the problems appeared. Peter Misidjan has been really poor in three of the games, Ja-Ryong Kim was below-par against FC Utrecht and even van Axel Dongen had an off day at Almelo and Quenten Hose also lacks match sharpness, so as soon as I needed to rest Hlynsson, van Axel Dongen and Kenneth Taylor our attack ran into the wall. I can’t criticise John Meeuwis too much, because if he doesn’t get any decent passes it’s unreasonable to demand goals from him.
And while we are good in possession and get a number of set pieces we haven’t been able to use them well enough. No goals from corners and the missed penalty against FC Utrecht really summed this up. At least we scored two goals at Monaco and hopefully it gives some confidence to our attacking four.
Despite all of our problems we’re still 22 games unbeaten at the end of September.
Player of the Month: Amourricho van Axel Dongen - despite having some not so good performances, scored four goals in SeptemberGoal of the Month: Amourricho van Axel Dongen vs. AS Monaco - extremely technical volley, but placed right next to the post.
Eredivisie
We’re two points behind FC Utrecht after that goalless draw with Heracles. Both Vitesse and PSV are breathing down our neck. At the bottom it looks like Almere City are way out of their depth and RKC Waalwijk is another club with not enough quality to stay up.
Champions League
Not a bad start at all. A win over AC Milan and an away draw with AS Monaco gives us more points than expected from the first two rounds. AS Monaco couldn’t get more than a point against Sturm Graz in the first round, so it makes our position even stronger compared to them.
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August 2032
Fixtures and Results
Four games in August. We start with the Johan Cruijff Schaal against our arch-rivals Feyenoord, but the Eredivisie season kicks off with a fairly easy schedule for us - home games against Almere City and Excelsior look like must wins and should give us good morale and confidence going forward.
We had home advantage for the Johan Cruijff Schaal final and we used it to full effect - controlled possession in the first half and in right before half-time Taylor’s defence-splitting pass found Peter Misidjan who placed his attempt next to the post. Feyenoord got inspired at half-time and they looked much more threatening right after the break and ex-Ajax player David Kalokoh equalised in 47’. I sent out Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson who had an instant impact by scoring a goal and assisting another - Prince Aning scored the best one of the game by sending a fierce shot into the top corner. The final score 3:1 was a very good win for us and gave a lot of confidence for the coming season.
The first Eredivisie game against Almere City (at home) was probably the easiest match of the season (at least on paper). Almere finished 7th in Keuken Kampioen Divisie, but somehow got promoted through play-offs and now find themselves well out of their depth. Three players from Jong Ajax bolster their ranks, but nobody predicts them higher than 18th.
I rotated the squad and pretty much sent out our second eleven against them, so despite our possession we couldn’t create good chances in the first half and always seemed to miss the final pass or breakthrough in their box. Penalty helped us in the second half - van Axel Dongen was brought down in the box and Taylor slotted in from the spot. Ten minutes later the Almere goalkeeper was unable to save Muringen’s strong attempt. It remained 2:0 - not the most impressive result, but we had no problems in defence, so it was a fairly one-sided fixture anyway.
sc Heerenveen away seemed like a tricky fixture and indeed they were. They had a good start and in the first 10-15 minutes it looked like momentum was theirs. Heerenveen had a number of corners in that period and one of them led to a close range header from their centre-back that should have been a goal, but Sinaga was in the right position and catched it comfortably. We then started to get better control over the midfield and John Meeuwis sent a beautiful volley into the bottom corner to make it 1:0 in the first half. The second half was much more under our control and van Axel Dongen’s tap-in made it 2:0. In the end we enjoyed 70% possession, so Heerenveen’s game plan probably didn’t work as well as they hoped and we came away with a good win.
We wrapped up August with a confident win over Excelsior - Kenneth Taylor opened things up with a beautiful free kick, John Meeuwis scored a brace (both goals were really easy tap-ins from just two metres out. Hlynsson added our fourth at the start of the second half and then Excelsior’s Apostolis Konstantopoulos was sent off for his two-footed lunge on Meeuwis - no contest from there on. The final score was 4:0, but we also hit the woodwork three times in this game, so it could have been worse for Excelsior.
In summary - a really strong start to our season and good results in August.
Tactics and Players
No news tactically - our positive 4-2-3-1 wide seems to work fine. I’ve added some individual instructions for specific players in certain positions (mainly whether to take more risks with passing or not). Also, playing with Ognjen Rajkovic in centre-back has allowed us to add variety to our corner routines, so both centre-backs are involved in attacking set pieces (Can Tas was useless in those situations because of his short height).
Player performances have been good in general, but Kenneth Taylor has stood out with his skillful passing and creativity - he’s been our best performer in August by far and the team has relied heavily on him in those games. Key assist in the derby, beautiful free kick and a number of key passes. He’s been above 8.00 rating in all of his games so far.
We have no injury problems so far and in August we’ve had plenty of time to prepare for fixtures, so it’s been a relatively easy period for us, with good pre-season training.
Player of the Month: Kenneth Taylor - just outstanding; two goals, three assists and 8.6 rating in AugustGoal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. sc Heerenveen - Taylor scored a beautiful free kick against Excelsior, but Meeuwis’ goal was really important to break the deadlock in away match at Heerenveen - a technically skillful volley from outside of the area that landed in the bottom corner - classy goal.
Eredivisie
Both PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord have dropped a lot of points in their first match days. PSV is rebuilding - they let go a number of veteran players in Summer and also sold their key striker Jason van Duiven. Feyenoord have struggles of their own, so both giants seem struggling.
That allowed FC Utrecht to emerge as the main challenger for the title - they had an excellent August, starting with successful Champions League play-offs where they secured their place in the group stage and also started their Eredivisie campaign with three straight wins. They’ve finished third two seasons in a row now and there’s no reason to believe they want to win the title now.
At the bottom of the table we find Almere City (as predicted). Another newly-promoted team RKC Waalwijk seems to be weaker than their competitors, too.
Champions League
Groups were drawn and we landed in Group G with AS Monaco, AC Milan and Sturm Graz. AC Milan looks like the strongest team in the group. AS Monaco should be on a similar level with us and Austrians are clear outsiders. We have a chance to go through if we perform well against AC Milan at home and manage to beat AS Monaco over two games.
FC Utrecht is in group A with Manchester City, Atalanta and Atletico Madrid - I can’t see them higher than 4th against those clubs. PSV Eindhoven are in group C with PSG, Inter and Panathinaikos. While they should be able to beat Greeks, the other two opponents are European giants and so third place and Europa League knockout stages is a realistic target for PSV.
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Squad Update 2032
The core of the team has remained the same and except Stanis Idumbo Muzambo we didn’t have any departures this Summer. Few of the talented youngsters (Calvin Francis, Loet van Fessem, Joel van de Sande) are out on loan, but we have a good squad size (22 players) to start the season with, knowing that one or two youngsters from U-18 can climb their way up towards Spring.
Our oldest player is Kenneth Taylor who turned 30 in Spring, but the average age is between 22-23, so we’re still extremely young even at Eredivisie level and that inexperience is expected to show in more difficult Champions League games.
We have less international players than earlier - some of them have grown out of U-21 level, but haven’t been able to get the call-up to the main squad. Kenneth Taylor, Prince Aning and Peter Misidjan are on the verge of the national team at the moment. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson is a regular for Iceland and Ja-Ryong Kim has collected more than 50 caps for South Korea. Estonia relies heavily on youngsters who come up from our youth system.
Goalkeepers
Riswan Sinaga has improved a lot in the last season, but because Calvin Francis is away on loan, we’re rather thin in the goalkeeping department. If something would happen to Sinaga, our next best option is young Bulgarian Metodi Borisov from Jong Ajax.
Defenders
My preferred four would be Jermoumi-Aertssen-Rajkovic-Aning.
Compared to the last season we have a lot more depth, because we have Rik Vos back in the team and four centre-backs should allow us to distribute game time between players. Can Tas is our second best centre-back on paper, but his short height and inability to deal with headers has caused us problems in the past and I have found that I prefer Rajkovic over him in the second part of the last season. It’s possible that I need to retrain Can Tas as a midfielder to keep him happy at Ajax (or allow him to move on).
There is experience in this defensive line - a lot of players between 25-30 years of age. Young full-backs Richard Svec and Giorgio Jongebloet have improved nicely, but their technical ability is still a lot behind Aning and Jermoumi, so that’s the main focus in training for them from now on.
Midfielders
Not a lot of changes here. In controlling midfield I rely on the trio Taylor-Muringen-Tahiri. Both Claidel Muringen and Mohamed Tahiri have developed really well in training. I lack good cover for Taylor, but if necessary Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson can drop deeper to the DLPd role. The AMCa position is usually shared between Hlynsson and Peter Misidjan, who can expect much more game time this season after Stanis Idumbo Muzambo’s departure.
Wingers
Here we had to change things a little bit because Nikita Tamm left in the last Winter and Ja-Ryong Kim had to carry the main load on the left. Kim and van Axel Dongen are in my first eleven at the start of this season, with Quenten Hose as the third option. If I need to replace Kim, my preferred solution is to switch van Axel Dongen to the left as IWs and send Hose to the right as IWa.
The new face in the team is Anass Sarpong - a young and talented lad who played for Jong Ajax last Autumn and spent six months on loan at Almere City. He did fairly well in KeukenKampioen Divisie and now tries to get minutes here in Ajax. He’s capable of playing on both wings, but his agility and speed suit better for the AMR IWa position.
Strikers
No changes here. I expect John Meeuwis to produce more goals and better performances than last season (20 goals should be a reasonable expectation for him) and Koen Verlijsdonk provides cover and minutes from the bench. Both play as PFa usually, but Meeuwis looks fairly versatile and even able to play as CFa. We have talented youngsters coming up from U-18, but it takes a couple of seasons for them to get on the brink of the first team.
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Summer 2032
July started with the usual pre-season analysis, but to my surprise it was the first Summer when pundits picked Vitesse Arnhem as the most likely winner of the Eredivisie. Surprising, because they finished just 5th in May and although they have a very strong first eleven, we became champions by an astonishing 18 points margin and our young team looks better and more experienced than it was a year ago, so I wonder if analysts thought clearly if they predicted us the runners-up position. We’ll see how it unfolds in reality.
Transfer Window
Several youngsters went on loan in Summer and it was convenient for us that our feeder club Almere City were promoted to Eredivisie, so our loan manager jumped at the chance and sent Joel van de Sande, Joel Comvalius and Kevin Otto there right away. Goalkeeper Calvin Francis went to relegated Willem II for the season and young winger Bence Kertesz tries to make an impact in AFC.
At the same time some loan players returned to bolster our first team ranks - Rik Vos and Loet van Fessem provide more options in defence and Anass Sarpong hopes to get some game time on the wing. Van Fessem trained with the first team and played in August, but on transfer deadline day he went on loan to Excelsior.
One departure in this transfer window was Stanis Idumbo Muzambo - an ambitious attacking midfielder who is skilled and technical, but his contract ran out and his expectations about his new deal were higher than I was willing to meet - around £40-50k p/w seemed over the top for a squad player who is also fairly injury prone. In the end I allowed him to leave for free (something that fans disliked, but at least the board understood his impact on our wage budget and was more content with the decision).
I also sold young centre-back Ben Zimmerman to AZ Alkmaar for £100k + 40% next transfer fee clause - Zimmerman is a decent talent, who’s unlikely to be good enough for our first team, so that’s always a good solution - average fee + high future fee clauses and if he makes himself a name in the other clubs we will financially benefit from it as well.
It happened that Manchester City made an offer to our coach Ashley Rogers. As the Briton he had obviously enough temptation to accept the offer and return to England, so I was prepared to let him go, and the compensation that City was willing to pay for his services (£1,8m) was good enough for almost any backroom staff.
Fortunately I had prepared for such events and had an extensive shortlist of potential staff. I quickly approached AZ Alkmaar’s Dijar Kasim who took over our technical attacking coaching (and immediately raised it to 5* level).
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Another year, another Eredivisie title, although I have to say that we struggled more than usual against our bigger competitors, especially in away games. We were outplayed by PSV and Feyenoord in away matches and our inability to play well at De Kuip ultimately kicked us out from the KNVB Beker in the quarter final stage.
Our European season was a disappointment, too - we couldn’t get through the group in the Champions League and although we met our minimum target in Europa League (to progress further from the first knockout stages) we dropped out in the quarter final, so it wasn’t a spectacular campaign.
In addition to first team trophies our U-18 team won the league, so our future continues to seem bright.
Tactics and Players
The fact that we didn’t sell our key players should have been our advantage this season, but we didn’t look like a much improved team after last Summer. Nikita Tamm left in January, but his departure didn’t seem to have a real effect on our performances.
Despite that we hit a real slump in March and April - not only results (defeat to Feyenoord), but also performances and our inability to create chances was worse than in the last season. Players were generally fit - the most risky period was in Autumn when Prince Aning was out and young Richard Svec had to start as our left-back, but in attack I usually had options and we could rotate the team, so while players were fit and sharp, I can’t explain all of the poor performances.
In some games it was evident that the current team can’t handle pressure too well - some of our leaders have just ‘balanced’ personalities and that’s not good enough. I have to rely on more determined players to form the future team towards professionalism, ambition and grit.
AFC Ajax End of Season Awards 2031-2032
Eredivisie Awards 2031-2032
Plenty of awards came our way in June. Olivier Aertssen won the Golden Boot, I was (again) voted the manager of the year by Eredivisie managers and Riswan Sinaga was just a bit short of winning the goalkeeper of the year.
We made a clean sweep in the Young Player of the Year category, where the win belonged to (perhaps surprisingly) Koen Verlijsdonk.
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May 2032
Fixtures and Results
Three games in our schedule and all of the opponents are small teams, so I expect three wins. Willem II are fighting against relegation, so they’ll probably give their all against us, but other clubs have little to play for at this stage. It’s interesting to see our loanees Rik Vos and Loet van Fessem in action for PEC Zwolle and ADO Den Haag respectively
We took a narrow 1:0 win over PEC Zwolle - John Meeuwis scored, but we didn’t create too many good chances (although kept our defence in order and limited Zwolle’s options). Decent away win, I guess, although less entertaining than our fans perhaps expect.
Our home game against ADO Den Haag was another routine winn - we took the lead in the first half and then ADO’s Jenson Seelt was sent off after he brought down Meeuwis as the last man and 11 vs. 10 our second half was much more relaxed. However, one lapse of concentration in defence allowed ADO to score from their very first attempt in the game, so that did upset me a little, but Hose made it 3:1 before the end and settled the nerves.
We had more fun in the last match, beating Willem II 4:0 (and sending them to relegation in the process). Willem II needed a win from this game to survive, but they didn’t put up a fight and when John Meeuwis curled in a swerving attempt from 21 metres it seemed that life went out of that Willem II team. Penalty from Hlynsson and another goal from Meeuwis made it 3:0 at half-itme and Ja-Ryong Kim completed the rout in 86’ - very confident win to wrap up our season in front of home fans.
Tactics and Players
Much more attacking football on display in May - it seems that our regular positive 4-2-3-1 works out nicely against smaller teams in the league.
I could rotate a bit in May and most of the players got chances to impress. We also avoided unnecessary bookings and suspensions that could have come with us into the next season.
I was really impressed with John Meeuwis in those three games and it looks like our best striker is back in form - he scored against Zwolle, then was at his creative best against ADO, dishing out two assists and creating chances for teammates and completed his month with a brace against Willem II.
Player of the Month: John Meeuwis - good in all three games, scoring three goals and giving two assists.
Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. Willem II Tilburg - curled into the top corner from 21 metres.
Eredivisie
We have a huge advantage in the table and to collect 90 points with 34 games is a great achievement. PSV were runner-up and FC Utrecht hung on to their third place, despite the fact that Feyenoord and Vitesse were on a long winning streak at the end of the season. At the bottom of the table Willem II went out and NEC secured the place in the play-offs, but failed to protect their Eredivisie place and fell against Almere City in two games.
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April 2032
Fixtures and Results
Five games in April. We are approaching the end of season and our focus now shifts to Europa League - two difficult games against Newcastle United (who look like a strong Premier League top-half team) and I suspect that we need to rotate a little bit more in our Eredivisie games to absorb the match load.
The Noord-Hollandse derby against AZ Alkmaar was as terrible as our last game in March against Excelsior. Both teams defended well, but our attack was really dull and we couldn’t make a single shot until Prince Aning saw a half-chance deep in injury time. Both of our two attempts missed the target and our xG was just 0.22, but AZ weren’t much better. I could again criticise our attacking players (and perhaps pressure seems to get to them, because again I saw a lot of nervous faces on the pitch). A bore draw as a result ended our ten games winning streak, but one point might be good enough, considering our big advantage in the table.
Then it was time for our trip to St. James’ Park in England. In the away game we started with a bit more balanced mentality and cautious pressing instructions, but we were pretty much battered from start to finish. Newcastle scored their first goal in the first ten minutes and then Kenneth Taylor gave away a penalty. I tried to change things in the second half and switched tactical instructions, but no help - players were anxious and Newcastle enjoyed total control over proceedings. Third goal came in and in 88’ they completed the rout with their fourth, so we returned from England with our tail between our legs and it was clear that our Europa League campaign was over with that defeat. We had just one key pass, one shot (off target) and 6.39 average rating. Clearly beaten and nothing good to take away from this match.
Struggling FC Groningen offered us a chance to bounce back and light things up - after a quiet first half it happened that Groningen’s left-back Isiah Dalfour received his second yellow card and then we started to put the pressure on - Quenten Hose scored with a nice volley from a free kick and then doubled his tally from the spot. Young Jaap Prinsen was unlucky to see his free kick hit the crossbar, but Ognjen Rajkovic was first to react and slotted in from a loose ball and added another goal with a header from a corner. Meanwhile FC Groningen lost another player to early dismissal and the second half was really relaxed from our part. Curious that all four goals came from set pieces (no wonder, as FC Groningen made 27 fouls in this game). The win also secured our Eredivisie title with four match days to go.
We had nothing but pride to play for in the second leg match with Newcastle. We conceded an early goal (again), but van Axel Dongen equalised in the first half after a blunder from the Newcastle goalkeeper. However, our defensive errors allowed Pedro Neto to score a simple tap-in in injury time and take Newcastle to half-time with a 2:1 lead. We did well to find another goal and make it 2:2 shortly after the break. John Meeuwis wasted another clear cut chance in 76, but Newcastle also hit the crossbar and Matheus Cunha forced Sinaga to make a fantastic save in 80’, so 2:2 seemed like a fair result in the end. Newcastle went through to the semi finals (and eventually into the final where they lost to Manchester United).
After securing our league title, the away win over Fortuna Sittard was a fairly routine affair. Fortuna certainly weren’t happy with their season and sacked their manager, bringing in Mark van Bommel (who has been unemployed for two years after being sacked by PSV Eindhoven) just before our match, but it didn’t make much difference - Can Tas headed in from a free kick and Peter Misidjan doubled our lead in the second half. Kenneth Taylor also missed a penalty, but it didn’t matter. Defensively we looked good and didn’t give Fortuna any decent chances, so a solid 2:0 win for us.
So, we’re the champions again, but our Europa League campaign is over and our season is heading to its final stretch.
Tactics and Players
Tactically our biggest disappointment was the away game at St. James’ Park - I tweaked some things, but we had just one attempt and we couldn’t keep Newcastle attacking players under control. I’m not sure how much their better quality was the factor, but we failed miserably there.
With the win over FC Groningen we got over our slump in form, but the last three games also showed we relied a lot on set pieces - all four goals in the FC Groningen match came from a set piece and Can Tas also scored from an indirect free kick against Fortuna Sittard. Taylor also missed a penalty, so there’s some proof we can be very effective in dead ball situations if we’re given a chance.
Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi was suffered from a neck injury and he missed most of the games in April, returning for the Fortuna game and so Giorgio Jongebloet started all four games as our right-back, and I have to say that he didn’t use that chance well - he was almost always one of our worst performers and received 5.8 rating in the defeat from Newcastle. He’s still young and talented, but at the moment his only advantage over Jermoumi is his height - he’s slightly better in the air and after Jermoumi had lost a couple of crucial headers at the far post that led to conceding a goal, I appreciate a taller player, but his lack of technical ability means he’s not offering much in attack with the ball on his feet, so we were much less of a threat down that right flank.
Our attacking players were terrible in the first two games, but slightly improved over the course of next matches. I was delighted for John Meeuwis who finally scored (his 16th goal of the season) and Ja-Ryong Kim finally put in some decent performances (although South Korean fans debate whether his form deserves a call to the national team).
What this poor form towards the end of the season means is that interest in our star players has slowly ebbed away and I haven’t seen a manager of a big club in Johan Cruyff Arena for a while now. Perhaps it predicts a quiet Summer for us in the transfer market.
Player of the Month: Ognjen Rajkovic - played in three games, but was superb against FC Groningen and also had a good game in the 2nd leg match against Newcastle. Showed that he can be relied upon in defence.
Goal of the Month: Quenten Hose vs. FC Groningen - technically the most difficult effort, directing a volley from a free kick into the net.
Eredivisie
We won the title by some margin and we can reach 90 points if we win our remaining fixtures in May. Feyenoord won the KNVB Beker final, but PSV Eindhoven are holding the runner up position in the table. At the bottom, SC Cambuur will be relegated, but the battle for the 16th place between NEC Nijmegen and Willem II Tilburg will be fierce.
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March 2032
Fixtures and Results
Five games in March (a lot less than in February). Our focus is on our Europa League fixtures with Villarreal, because the lead in the Eredivisie could allow us to be a little bit more relaxed (and risky with starting line-ups) in the league games.
We started with a confident win over NEC Nijmegen. Our opponents started with a bit of an unorthodox 4-3-1-2 narrow formation, switched it to a more conservative 4-4-2 after the break, but it didn’t change the fact that their defence was just not good enough to contain us. Amourricho van Axel Dongen scored a brace and Olivier Aertssen wrapped things up from the spot. Kenneth Taylor was suspended for this game because of accumulated yellow cards, but we didn’t really miss him. In the end NEC players made 32 fouls and collected 7 yellow cards against us - referee Siemen Mulder was blasted for his performance in the game, but perhaps don’t foul so much, then? Our xG was 3.94 in the end, so a pretty convincing win.
We were confident ahead of our first leg with Villarreal at Johan Cruijff Arena. Villarreal are an extremely experienced (fancy way of saying - old) team. They have almost the entire first eleven over 30 years old and a number of veterans aged 33-35 in the team. But, as it often happens, they were too defensive in away games and came to Amsterdam with a conservative 4-1-4-1 DM formation. We controlled it from start to finish and created some good chances in the first half - Amourricho van Axel Dongen put us in front with an easy finish and John Meeuwis scored with a lovely chip to make it 2:0 before Villarreal’s Pau Torres curled in a beautiful strike from 20 metres to keep them in the game at half-time. van Axel Dongen’s second goal in the second half made it 3:1 and that looks like a good enough result to take us into the second leg.
sc Heerenveen offered us a battle between two Europa League games. We took the lead in the first half after 17-years old Richard Svec scored his first ever goal for the club, but the rest of the match was a fairly even battle between two teams. I had rotated and made a lot of changes in our starting line-up and it clearly showed in our attack - chances were rare and we couldn’t turn our possession into goals. At the same time Heerenveen wasted some big chances themselves - their best opportunity came in the first half from a corner when their Lithuanian centre-back Edgaras Utkus headed it over from a point blank range. In the end it remained 1:0 - not the best performance from us, but kept a clean sheet and I was delighted for Richard Svec and his match-winning strike.
Next Thursday it was time to travel to Spain. I was a bit surprised at how small that Villarreal town really was, and just a 23,500 stadium was packed for the match. Villarreal started the game well - ex-Ajax striker Brian Brobbey used his first chance to give them a lead and curled it into the top corner from 23 metres ten minutes later, so after 19 minutes we were 0:2 behind and our 3:1 lead from the first match was pretty much obliterated. The rest of the ninety minutes were a real struggle - both teams defended well and it was difficult to create something, but in the second half Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi struck home with a fierce strike and gave us the vital goal. We had 10 attempts in the end, but neither of the teams could get xG over 1.00 - a very defensive game and Villarreal certainly defended well. We returned from Spain with a 1:2 defeat, but it was enough to get through with a 4:3 aggregate score. Our opponent in the quarter final is Newcastle United.
The last match against Excelsior was a potentially tricky one, because Excelsior is the most overachieving club in Eredivisie this season and they’re currently sitting in 8th position (although predicted just 16th in pre-season) .It was one of the ugliest games I’ve ever seen - we couldn’t get any of our shots on target (in the first half our shooting was 6/0 and 14/2 in the full match) and our concentration in defence wasn’t much better either, as Excelsior managed to create a number of half-chances. We created none in the entire match - so poor was our attacking movement and decision-making, but as in the number of times before, we somehow managed to grab the win in injury time. John Meeuwis saw his attempt being blocked, but the rebound fell to Stanis Idumbo Muzambo who nodded it into the empty net. The most undeserved victory - our xG was slightly lower than Excelsior’s and they definitely felt that they did enough to get something out of this game, but that’s football.
Tactics and Players
So, three wins in Eredivisie and we’re still in the Europa League, but our performances have been declining through March and especially our attacking game and cohesion left much to desire.
Tactically the only decision was how to approach the second leg game in Villarreal - I opted for our usual setup, just tuned mentality down to balanced. It wasn’t a poor choice per se, but Villarreal scored two very clinical goals and that left us struggling, until our regular positive 4-2-3-1 got us out of the mud..Because I rotated the team, I sometimes opted for Amourricho van Axel Dongen on our left flank as IWs - a move that supported our left defence a little bit more, but on the other hand had a negative effect on our attack. In the future it might be a conservative option to preserve our lead in difficult games.
Our attacking players have had really inconsistent performances after the first two matches and it’s difficult to praise anybody in particular. But Peter Misidjan made his debut for Holland in this international window and that certainly deserves a notice. Prince Aning was also involved in international games and 17 years old winger Marcus Mägi made his debut for Estonia.
Player of the Month: Olivier Aertssen - I can’t really praise any of the attacking players, but at least we’ve kept some clean sheets and that’s mostly Aertssen’s doing. Also scored a penalty against NEC NijmegenGoal of the Month: Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi vs. Villarreal - well struck into the top corner; also a vital goal to keep us in the Europa League
Youth Intake 2032
A very interesting bunch of players this season. We have two excellent striker prospects in Sander van Dijk and Grzegorz Kmiecik (how on earth a Swedish-Polish kid ended up in Amsterdam?), a decent goalkeeper in Niciano Kuijsten and a couple of decent defensive midfielders.
Overall it’s a very international group of kids - players from Sweden, Germany, Estonia, Somalia, Turkey (and a few from Netherlands, too).
Football journalists published their NxGn 50 list to draw attention to top talents and wonderkids in football and to my surprise I saw Richard Svec high on the third place in the list. Loet van Fessem and Anass Sarpong are also in the list, but in places between 31-40.
Eredivisie
We’ve maintained our 10 points lead over PSV Eindhoven. At the bottom of the table SC Cambuur looks like to be relegated, but Willem II fight fiercely against relegation and have found a way to get some points to the board, so nothing is decided about them.
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February 2032
Fixtures and Results
February has 29 days in 2032, but those days are packed with fixtures for us - eight games this month, so a football match in every three games or so, and to make things more difficult our squad that is available for selection has diminished - Nikita Tamm has left to England, Rik Vos is away on loan, Prince Aning is injured for at least a couple of more weeks; Amourricho van Axel Dongen suffered concussion in training and has to keep it easy for two weeks and Koen Verlijsdonk caught flu and was sent home for two weeks by our club doctor. We’ve enjoyed a relatively clean bill of health so far, but that’s not the case in February, it seems.
And the fixture list itself offers some challenges - we got Feyenoord in the KNVB Beker quarter final - another Klassieker derby at De Kuip (a chance to revenge our defeat in December, but probably a really tough match for us), then away derby against PSV Eindhoven before we host Feyenoord at Johan Cruijff Arena. The rest of the Eredivisie games look easier and Astana in Europa League shouldn’t be a serious threat, but the trip to Kazakhstan is an exhausting eight hour flight in both directions (+ adjusting to time difference) so that will leave its mark on the squad with such a packed schedule.
We started with probably the easiest game - relegation candidates SC Cambuur at home. SC Cambuur have been the yoyo club in the past few seasons, bouncing between Eredivisie and Keuken Kampioen Divisie and it should have been an easy game for us. We started well and took the lead after Olivier Aertssen headed in from a corner, but two minutes after scoring Aertssen picked up his second yellow card and was sent off. Playing with 10 men against 11 made it much more challenging, but we started to find more chances in the second half (and wasted some of them) and Kenneth Taylor drove it low from 20 metres to double our lead. In the final 15 minutes Cambuur finally started to take more men forward in attacks and found good chances as well - Riswan Sinaga made a couple of great saves and Frank Stromsnes headed in from point blank range to score for SC Cambuur in 85’, but it was a little it too late for them and we managed to keep it at 2:1. Happy with three points, but performance could have been somewhat better - we could have scored our third goal early in the second half and should have been better in defence, so might have avoided being under pressure late in the game.
FC Utrecht were a strong opponent, too, but they don’t look like title contenders this season and went through major change in December - their manager Robert Maaskant chose to quit and move for the Southampton post and FC Utrecht called up no other than David De Gea for their vacant post. The legendary Spanish goalkeeper has some experience in football management in Ligue 1, but it’s the first time I’m head to head against him. At first FC Utrecht didn’t look like much under the new management - we controlled possession in the first half and it led to two goals from Ja-Ryong Kim and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson. They changed more attacking in the second half and switched their most dangerous attacking midfielder Wilfried Gnonto to their right wing where we had our young wing-back Richard Svec and that mismatch was punished by a goal in 72’ before I got to react and switch Svec to FBs instead of FBa. Slightly nervous in the last 20 minutes, but we held onto the lead and won in front of our home fans. A good win, but I don’t think De Gea thinks too highly about me after that first encounter.
I was hopeful ahead of the Klassieker derby, but we were clearly beaten by Feyenoord at De Kuip. Our opponents demonstrated sharpness in attack with some really good movements and in 27’ our defence was ripped apart and Luis Sinisterra made it 1:0 for the hosts. We were lucky to equalise in 74’ after Feyenoord defence and goalkeeper made a mess of their clearance and the ball bounced into their own goal from their centre-back, but in the final 15 minutes they clearly showed that they deserved to win - three good chances and another goal in 88’ finished our cup journey. We were just not good enough - probably missed Prince Aning a lot in this match, because 17 years old Richard Svec was no match for Takefusa Kubo on our left flank who is one of the best wingers in Eredivisie. Our shooting was just 9/4 in this match, while Feyenoord had 27 attempts, so even to get into the extra time would have been riding our luck. But I have to admit, that I’m a bit embarrassed, because after ten years in this league we’re not used to be so soundly beaten very often.
While everything seems to go poorly in the continental competitions and in the KNVB Beker, at least we’re strong in Eredivisie and bounced back with an away win over FC Twente. It was a bit drab match in the first half, but after the half-time team-talk we quickly scored (much better performance from Ja-Ryong Kim after his abysmal display at De Kuip) and Peter Misidjan curled it into the top corner to score his first goal of the season and secure all three points. Generally OK performance in the second half and good defence, because we didn’t allow FC Twente to create proper chances in this match.
FK Astana is an obscure team in the Europa League and I went to the home game against them with clear intention to win and make sure we progress after the first leg and we did exactly that - a very convincing and comfortable 4:0 win at Johan Cruijff Arena put us in a very strong position in this tie and we can be quite relaxed before our second leg in Kazakhstan.
PSV are our closest competitors in the league table, so the Topper derby at Philips Stadion was a crucial match for us. It was important not to lose, winning would be a bonus, at least that’s what I told myself. We started brilliantly - Ja-Ryon Kim scored out of nowhere with a limited space, but his attempt found the net and in 20’ John Meeuwis executed well after a long ball from Riswan Sinaga and in twenty minutes we were leading 2:0. Great start, but the first half ended 2:1, because PSV’s tall winger Naana Dalfour won a header against Jermoumi at the far post and headed it in. He scored a similar goal in our last encounter at Johan Cruijff Arena (that finished 2:2). I was really frustrated with that, but I acknowledge it’s difficult to defend against that when the opponent's jumping reach is 14 and Jermoumi has just 6.
PSV changed their formation a little at half-time and in the beginning of the second half they started to get chances and their Russian midfielder Pavel Trifonov had three good looks in a row and finally in 53’ he was alone behind our lines and chipped it over Sinaga to equalise. Just then I realised their manager had switched him from BWM to MEZ and that led to untracked runs behind our defence that ripped us apart. PSV started to gain momentum and they dominated the second half - Jason van Duinen hit the post and wasted a couple of chances and we struggled to play through their high pressure, but somehow we managed to find the winning goal - PSV goalkeeper Maarten Paes dropped Ja-Ryong Kim’s cross in the box and John Meeuwis slotted it in to make it 3:2. Despite constant pressure from PSV we managed to hold on to that lead and returned from Eindhoven with a valuable 3:2 win.
Statistically we were clearly beaten by PSV - we had possession, but just 6/3 shooting (all those three shots on target resulted in a goal) and 0.84xG while PSV had 25/9 attempts to our goal and 3.10 xG. We played the whole match with a balanced mentality - after scoring two goals in the first 20 minutes I didn’t feel we needed to be more attacking and then in the second half with 3:2 it seemed wise just to soak up that PSV’s pressure. So, a sort of tactical battle as well, in which we prevailed.
Our trip to Kazakhstan was a tedious journey and Astana welcomed us with freezing weather and some light snow. The pitch looked decent despite that and we could play good football, but I chose to rotate the squad heavily and it wasn’t a highly entertaining match, finally ending goalless. We hit the woodwork twice (and Astana hit the post once), but it remained goalless. Our advantage from the first leg was enough to get us into the next round where we’ll meet Villarreal.
And then it was time for our revenge match in the Klassieker derby. Feyenoord looked much more cautious at Johan Cruijff Arena - we had small initiative from start to finish and had things under control defensively. We created just a few good chances in the game, but they were enough to score one goal in each half and although we didn’t destroy our rivals in front of our home fans, it was a good and solid win.
Tactics and Players
Tactically the takeaway from February is that we tend to struggle in away games against big teams. Both away matches against Feyenoord and PSV were actually disastrous and it was a small miracle we managed to win 3:2 in Eindhoven. It doesn’t seem to be as much of a tactical problem, but our players are just too nervous in those high pressure games and fail to execute properly on the pitch. Lack of leaders (and determination), probably.
In addition to that we have had some serious problems with injuries - Prince Aning and Quenten Hose missed most of the month with traumas, Ja-Ryong Kim and Amourricho van Axel Dongen suffered knocks, Stanis Idumbo Muzambo as well (but he’s very injury prone and that shouldn’t be a surprise), so my hand was often forced with squad selection.
What delighted me was the fact that John Meeuwis ended his goal drought and scored a brace against PSV Eindhoven. He hasn’t been in the sharpest form in February, but he works really hard in training, his attributes improve and those bright moments indicate that he could pick up his goal scoring if he keeps his head down and has faith. While Meeuwis’ goals have dried up, our scoring is pretty evenly distributed. In February Amourricho van Axel Dongen reached 10 goals in the season and Ja-Ryong Kim scored four in eight games - he has started a lot more games after Nikita Tamm went to Chelsea and has managed to find his way to the score sheet more often as a result.
With all the injuries and rotation I introduced Peter Misidjan back into the starting line-up and he offered some good performances in February, also scoring his first goal of the season. That’s the kind of impact we need towards the end of the season. I also introduced one new player and young midfielder Joel van de Sande made his debut in the away match against Astana.
Player of the Month: Olivier Aertssen - a lot of inconsistency from our attacking players, but Aertssen has been rock solid in defence in most of the games and we need that kind of consistency.
Goal of the Month: Peter Misidjan vs. FC Twente - curled into the top corner from 20 metres
Eredivisie
With our strong results in the league and wins over PSV and Feyenoord we maintain our big lead in the table and it looks like securing our next title shouldn’t pose much of a challenge any more.
0 -
January 2032
Fixtures and Results
Four games in January and two of them against Heracles Almelo, and we meet Vitesse again with just a couple of weeks since our last encounter at Christmas.
After our fantastic win over Vitesse we met Heracles in Eredivisie and returned with a 1:2 defeat. It was a disappointing game - we started with our positive 4-2-3-1 formation and didn’t underestimate them in any way, but were defensively fragile in the first half and after we conceded a goal from a corner I switched to a balanced mentality. It brought us level at half-time, but then we conceded another goal from a free kick in the second half and that was it. I was fairly upset with the team - two goals conceded from set pieces and we didn’t do enough in attack to create chances. Heracles could congratulate themselves, because they did well enough to contain our attacks and deserved a good result from here.
In the next match, however, we took a good 1:0 win over Vitesse - Hlynsson scored after a nice combination in the first half and that was enough to secure all three points. We hit the woodwork twice, but it didn’t matter. Our defence was much better in this match and we didn’t allow Vitas to create any real chances, so well controlled from us until the end.
Three days later we had a chance to take revenge on Heracles and we were more convincing at home than we had been in the away game - Hlynsson scored from the spot, Quenten Hose doubled our lead after the break and although Jonas Figge scored from a corner (again a set piece!) in 59’, we did enough this time to win the game and move forward into the KNVB Beker quarter final.
The last game in January was a bit let-off again performance-wise, but at least the result came out right. After a drab first half Olivier Aertssen managed to head against the crossbar from a corner and Sparta’s Olvido Fer tried to make a clearance, but hammered the ball into his own net. Soon after the goal Sparta’s Brandon Pierrick received a red card for his hard tackle on Ja-Ryong Kim and in 82’ Aertssen headed in from another corner to make it 2:0. I stick to my argument that our performance was actually below-par, but a 2:0 win from an away game counts as a solid enough result.
Tactics and Players
In those four games we’ve been a bit unimpressive in attack and creating chances - not too much wrong defensively (except defending set pieces against Heracles), but we have around 60% possession in every game and with that much ball we should be able to create better chances. John Meeuwis is just a shadow of himself and looks completely out of shape - a goal in our first game, but below average performances after that. Ja-Ryong Kim hasn’t impressed either and our other wingers haven’t been so sharp either. It’s good we’ve been at least defensively sound most of the games.
Prince Aning has been injured after the first match and he’ll be out pretty much until the end of February. Richard Svec did well enough so far in those games (especially impressed with him against a strong Vitesse side), but February will bring more difficult opponents and I’m again a little bit worried of how he’ll do in the long run. Aning’s injuries might turn out to be costly for us this season.
Player of the Month: Olivier Aertssen - two really good performances against Vitesse and Sparta, also managed to score a goal
Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. Heracles Almelo - well placed shot, a true striker’s finish to level the game for us. I can’t understand why he couldn’t continue from this strike in the next matches.
Transfer Window
I made two decisions in this transfer window. The first one was to allow Nikita Tamm to leave for Chelsea in a bid of £48m. The Estonian winger has earned this chance and it was a decent fee for him. Ja-Ryong Kim will get more game time on our left flank as a result and Amourricho van Axel Dongen can switch over to left as well. I’m excited to see how young Anass Sarpong will develop on loan and he’ll probably get a chance in the first team after this Summer.
The second decision was to send our young centre-back Rik Vos to PEC Zwolle on loan until the end of the season. Our usual Aertssen-Can Tas-Rajkovic rotation should be enough to cover the centre-back position and Vos could benefit from more first team game time.
A number of Jong Ajax players also left - they had contracts running out in Summer and I set them all free to release in January and when clubs came in I allowed them leave early. Our reserve team is somewhat unbalanced because of that, but it will be this way only until March when the new batch of youngsters will come in.
Eredivisie
We still have a decent lead in the table and the top five are somewhat moved away from others. At the bottom it looks like SC Cambuur and Willem II struggle to retain their place in the top tier.
0 -
December 2031
Fixtures and Results
Six more games this year. We start with a crucial Klassieker derby at De Kuip and on Christmas Eve (sic!) we’ll travel to Arnhem, but the schedule has easier opponents, too, and there’s nothing to play for in our remaining Champions League fixture, so we have opportunities to rotate a lot, if we need or wish to do so.
The Klassieker derby was a huge letdown. We had no selection problems and could send out our best team, but Feyenoord were clearly better than us and created chances at the end of the first half. It remained 0:0 at half-time, but in the second half ex-Ajax player David Kalokoh (who moved to Feyenoord after several seasons in Bundesliga) scored the winner for them. I tried to change things tactically, but whatever I tried, it did not make any difference. Our players looked more nervous on the pitch than I would like to see - lack of leadership and determination evident (or perhaps inability to perform under pressure in big games). Our shooting was just 4/2 and our average rating was 6.56 in this game, underlying our lack of threat in attack. Thoroughly embarrassing performance and a lot to think about as a manager.
Our trip to Denmark provided a good chance to bounce back from that - I could rotate the team and we ran out clear winners against AGF. A number of goals scored certainly boosted confidence and improved morale.
The next league game against PEC Zwolle turned out to be a hard-fought 1:0 win in a match where we were clear favourites. Again, our creativity was not good enough and Zwolle’s defence was surprisingly difficult to break down, but Ja-Ryong Kim provided a moment of magic when he curled his strike into the top corner from 20 metres. I wasn’t happy with our attacking performance, but Kim’s goal proved to be enough to get all three points.
In our first KNVB Beker match of the season we managed to beat Fortuna Sittard more comfortably. For whatever reason we were against the Eredivisie side while much easier opponents were drawn against other clubs, but we did fairly well at Johan Cruijff Arena to beat them 3:0. Amourricho van Axel Dongen put us ahead with a volley in the second half and Kenneth Taylor scored with a free kick in 57’, before Fortuna’s left-back Ronald Reus was sent off with his second yellow card. Substitute Stanis Idumbo Muzambo completed the rout in injury time - good game overall and not a lot of complaints from me.
Willem II Tilburg are in the relegation zone and it should have been an easy win for us even in an away game, but it wasn’t just the case. Ja-Ryong Kim scored two quick goals for us in the first half, but we then allowed Taichi Hara to score one for Willem II and so the second half was not without some tension for us. We held on to our lead, but I feel it should have been more comfortable.
The last match was at Gelredome against Vitesse Arnhem. First I need to say it takes a special kind of idiot to schedule a league game on Christmas Eve at 20:45. Not sure what the people in the Eredivisie office were thinking. Most of the teams played on 23rd, but Feyenoord and NEC Nijmegen were also forced to drag their players out on Christmas Eve. Equally I couldn’t understand why thousands of fans should come to the stadium instead of sitting at the Christmas dinner with their families.
Either way, it was a difficult match and Vitesse have been in great form this season so far. We had our defeat in Rotterdam still fresh in mind and I tried to avoid the similar situation where we would be played off the park, so we started with a balanced mentality - a rare occasion in domestic games. We looked good in the first ten minutes and created some half-chances, but Vitesse took the lead in 21’. The first half was actually quite even battle stats-wise, but Vitesse were more clinical with their opportunities and that gave them an edge. However, all of that was to change in 59’ when their left-back Julien Melchior was sent off with a red card after a two-footed tackle on Jermoumi and we could take control of the match after that - we scored two goals, created chances and even though our sloppy defending allowed Vitesse to equalise with 10 men, a late goal from van Axel Dongen made it 3:2 and we returned with a crucial win from away game. Vitesse could really wonder what it could have been without Melchior’s red card - they had control in the game and the win in this game would have brought them to one point from us in the table, but they lost it after the red and now there is a seven points gap before the Winter break. How small details and individual errors change the fate of the campaign.
Tactics and Players
December offered some different results and feedback on tactical changes. I was confused whether I should use a balanced or positive mentality, because sometimes how it played out on the pitch didn’t actually make a lot of sense. One tactical problem seemed to be the role of John Meeuwis - my coaching staff claimed that he’s now capable of playing as CFa and I started him as a complete forward in some games, but the performances suffered (although Dramane Guehi excelled in my setup in the same role).
The bigger problem seemed to be inconsistent performances overall, especially in the games we struggled and I suspect it has something to do with some players getting too nervous in big games or when we were under pressure. My shouts had effect sometimes, and sometimes didn’t but the mental pressure seemed to hamper some players a lot.
The positive is that we have a full squad fit at the moment, everybody has trained well and younger players have developed enormously, so hopefully we’ll improve in the second half of the season.
Our goal scoring is well distributed between players. John Meeuwis had just one goal in December and his total is 11 in all competitions, Kenneth Taylor has 10 (but most of them are penalties), the others have less. I’d be surprised if anyone could get to 20 goals this season.
John Meeuwis was selected as the European Golden Boy at the end of the year
Player of the Month: Ja Ryong Kim - Korean winger hasn’t really shone this season, but scored some important goals in December
Goal of the Month: Ja-Ryong Kim vs. PEC Zwolle - curled into the top corner from 20 metres.
Youth Intake Preview
That’s quite promising, but let’s wait until March and see what there really is to offer.
Eredivisie
We have 44 points with 17 games and that’s actually fantastic points total, but a number of other clubs have had a strong first half of the season as well.
Champions League
So, we finished third in our group and will continue in Europa League, where our first knockout round opponent will be Astana (damn long travel).
0 -
November 2031
Fixtures and Results
We started November by hosting Excelsior. It was my 500th game in football management and Excelsior should have been an easy opponent by every sense, but we struggled a lot in this match. Stanis Idumbo Muzambo started as AMCa in midfield, but had to come off with injury in 18’ and we didn’t find our rhythm in the first half. And as it often happens, one mistake made a lot of difference in the game - Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi missed his header and allowed Thierry Ambrose to give Excelsior the lead in 65’ and then we had to push hard to get anything out of this match. Good thing was that the players reacted well - John Meeuwis levelled the game with a simple finish and three minutes later Kenneth Taylor scored from the spot to make it 2:1. A very difficult win, with a performance that left a lot to desire, but we finally turned things around in the last fifteen minutes and I have to be happy with that.
I expected a tough game at Stadio Olimpico against AS Roma and it was indeed a difficult challenge for us. The first half finished goalless, even though we were under some pressure in the first ten minutes. Later we managed to level the game somewhat and even found a couple of decent chances in attack, so overall I was slightly encouraged by our performance. It was a different story in the second half - AS Roma found another gear in the final 20 minutes, chances started to come their way and two goals in 78’ and 84’ sealed our fate - we were not too bad defensively for large part of the match, but didn’t threaten enough in attack in the second half and keeping 0:0 was our only hope, but it wasn’t to be. A lot of below-par performances from attacking players.
While trips to the northern part of the country could be tricky away games, we returned with a fairly comfortable win this time. FC Groningen looked like a wounded animal - they haven’t strengthened their squad a lot, but competing in the Champions League this season has come with a toll - a lot of (physically) challenging games, defeats that hurt morale and a lot of travelling means they’ve been really poor in Eredivisie as a result and find themselves in the relegation zone after the first ten games. And it was a humbling defeat from us in front of their home fans. I went with a risky option and offered our young striker Koen Verlijsdonk a chance to start and he caused havoc in the FC Groningen defence. Both of our wingers (van Axel Dongen and Tamm) fed Verlijsdonk with well-measured through balls and he was clinical with his finishing and after Tamm curled his attempt into the top corner from 22 metres it was 3:0 in the first half. Verlijsdonk went on to complete a hat-trick in the second half (talk about second best striker!) and the game concluded 4:0. FC Groningen manager Jeroen Esseboom was finally sacked after this defeat and counts as the first casualty of the season.
While we rolled over FC Groningen, what happened against FC Twente was a full-blown destruction in the second half - we had a few players that looked a bit tired after the international break and I thought - what the heck - and started with Koen Verlijsdonk again in attack. The first half went pretty much as expected - we had initiative and took the lead, but 1:0 at half time left all possibilities open. However, my positive team talk at the break inspired the team and we ripped them apart in the second half - six goals (including one own goal) in forty-five minutes. Both Koen Verlijsdonk and Amourricho van Axel Dongen scored hat-tricks in this match and we also hit the woodwork four times. Seven goals was perhaps a bit much, because our xG was just 3.86, and FC Twente players’ frustration was palpable, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on the pitch and the only downside was their consolation goal, so again we couldn’t keep a clean sheet.
I was hopeful before our key match against FC Barcelona, but out of nowhere we were trailing 0:2 after the first ten minutes. Gabriel Martinelli’s attempt from outside of the box went in off the post and then Ronald Araujo headed in from a set piece and we were down by two goals, but we actually didn’t play poorly and at half-time I was disappointed, because it looked like an even game in the first half. We improved even more after the break and created some good chances to ourselves, but failed to finish - Claidel Muringen had the best opportunity of the match, but his attempt was saved and in the end it was Dejan Kulusevski who made it 0:3 with a nice chip over Riswan Sinaga. The final score looks like we were clearly beaten, but actually it was just the quality of finishing that was the difference between the two teams - the stat sheet was pretty close and our xG was even somewhat better than Barcelona’s, but that’s football sometimes. The defeat meant that we can’t catch AS Roma in the group any more and our final place is third - short of the board’s expectations for this season.
FC Utrecht away were potentially difficult opponents and in reality they were exactly that. We controlled possession, but struggled to create good moments against their well organised defence and only had one half-chance in the first half. FC Utrecht stunned us with a counter-attack in 58’ and our situation looked dire before substitute Koen Verlijsdonk scored the late equaliser. I was disappointed with the result, but at least we rescued a point here and continued undefeated.
Tactics and Players
Tactically our focus was with Champions League games. My balanced formation didn’t work in Rome. It offered us a chance or two in the game (perhaps the problem was our finishing), but we lost possession and while we were more-less OK defensively it’s difficult to see that our chances could be good enough with those instructions in the long term. So, we have to change something, but what? Time to contemplate about player roles and instructions and perhaps I’ll get a chance to test it against stronger opposition in a friendly in January.
Tactics seemed to work better against FC Barcelona and this defeat was perhaps undeserved. For the moment, at least, I believe that our usual positive 4-2-3-1 should suffice in home games.
What has been wonderful to see is our number of goals in Eredivisie. Scoring a lot of goals gives a lot of confidence to players and praise obviously helps to build morale, so big wins over FC Groningen and FC Twente spurred us forward. I have rotated the team a little and minutes are relatively well spread out (except Peter Misidjan who struggles to get starts and Stanis Idumbo Muzambo who has a number of injuries). Situation with Idumbo Muzambo is still unclear - his contract is still about to run out in next Summer; he is a high earner in the squad, but expects significant raise with his new contract, but he’s very injury prone and I’m not sure if he’ll last over 20 games in a season, so he’s more like a rotation option in my mind, but it’s difficult to pay more than £40,000 p/w for that rotation option. We have December to sort out that contract issue, but it better be resolved this time.
Good performances attract other clubs. Manchester United are searching for a new midfield playmaker and both Kenneth Taylor and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson have been on the radar of their manager Erik ten Hag. ten Hag came to Amsterdam to watch our match against FC Twente and commented about his interest in signing Hlynsson, I replied to this speculation in press conference that I’m open to discussion when the price is right, so this information has been given the Dutch football media a lot to write about in the past two weeks. Let’s see if it leads to any actual bids in January.
Youngsters have continued to surprise at the Eredivisie level. Centre-back Rik Vos made his starting debut against FC Twente and had a good game (at least one comfortably tall centre-back in the squad who keeps on winning headers against most strikers) and Koen Verlijsdonk is not perhaps the match for John Meeuwis according to his attributes, but his two consecutive hat-tricks raised a lot of eyebrows and it’s more difficult to keep him on the bench in the future. At the same time John Meeuwis’ form has dropped significantly and he has just one goal to show for in November. I understand that he’s played against stronger opponents in the Champions League and lost confidence is difficult to find when opposition defence is better, but his poor performance against FC Utrecht showed that something is seriously wrong with him and I have to help him improve.
Player of the Month: Koen Verlijsdonk - breath of fresh air in our attack, seven goals and two hat-tricks in November.
Goal of the Month: Nikita Tamm vs. FC Groningen - well struck effort from 22 metres
Eredivisie
We are slowly gaining points on the competitors. PSV Eindhoven and Vitesse made a goalless draw in November and that helped us to get another two points advantage over both of them, but our draw in Utrecht allowed them to get a little closer again.
At the bottom of the table it looks like FC Groningen is close to getting away from the relegation zone, but both SC Cambuur and Willem II have got one win in November and the difference is not too big for them.
Champions League
Our defeat to Barcelona meant that we had a slim hope to qualify, but it required that AGF would beat AS Roma in the other match and it didn’t happen, so our 0:2 away defeat at Olimpico is a decisive factor in the table and we’re third. The last match in Denmark doesn’t change anything in that regard.
1 -
October 2031
Fixtures and Results
Only four games in October, but difficult matches against PSV Eindhoven and AS Roma.
The Topper derby brought an almost full crowd to Johan Cruijff Arena and we started this match well - Ognjen Rajkovic headed in an indirect free kick and we took charge of the game, but just two minutes later PSV equalised. Amourricho van Axel Dongen squared for Hlynsson who made it 2:1 to give us the lead at the break, but in truth it was a game with just a few good chances for both teams. We held our lead in the second half and didn’t look in trouble defensively, but in 67’ Riswan Sinaga made a terrible mistake and played the ball straight to Jason van Duiven who had no problems converting this gift to an equaliser. We couldn’t score another goal and Sinaga’s error meant that spoils were shared in this derby. It has to be said that PSV defended well - we made only nine key passes in this game and John Meeuwis was well isolated in ninety minutes. You could say that PSV came to Amsterdam with a good game plan, it worked somewhat well most of the match and they were helped by a glaring mistake from our goalkeeper, but either way they were happy to get a point from this.
I expected a fairly easy game against NEC Nijmegen and our team selection reflected the fact that some of our (younger) players were tired after the international window. There was a scary moment for us in 17’ when NEC’s Amine Essahel went for the ball in our six yard box and tackled it well, but Riswan Sinaga made a great save to keep it out. We went to half-time with a 1:0 lead, courtesy of a simple tap-in from van Axel Dongen. In the second half we were awarded a rather dubious penalty (that was surprisingly upheld by VAR) and when Nikita Tamm slotted in another clear cut chance it looked like NEC was starting to fall apart. However, their best striker from the last season, Conor Noss, headed in to give them a consolation goal. Two-goal win from away game was a decent result nonetheless.
That gets us to our crucial home game against AS Roma. I’m happy that we have our best eleven available for those important Champions League games. We started with a positive mentality and took the lead in 12’ - van Axel Dongen’s attempt caused some difficulties to AS Roma goalkeeper Justin Bijlow and John Meeuwis was first to react and tuck it in. Portuguese striker Vitinha was labelled as the danger man for Roma and he showed it in the first half - he was everywhere where anything remotely dangerous happened, had a half-chance (that Riswan Sinaga turned away), won headers in our box and eventually he scored the equaliser after Claidel Muringen lost possession in midfield and allowed AS Roma to build a counter-attack. Vitinha’s skill was evident when he turned away from Can Tas with his first touch and put the ball next to the post calmly. The second half was a hard-fought battle, the one where one goal could be decisive and in this tactical challenge I did better than my counterpart on AS Roma bench - I sent out Ja-Ryong Kim and Quenten Hose and they built a lovely attack through the middle and Hose finished his opportunity nicely - he has wasted a number of chances in Eredivisie games and perhaps hasn’t been in the best form this season, but here the young winger delivered us the winning goal - such an important win, but also a warning that the repeat match in Stadio Olimpico in just two weeks is not going to be easy.
The last match against Heracles was an easy one, but finished with a narrow 1:0 win. Our opponents came to Johan Cruijff Arena with a defensive 4-1-4-1 formation and couldn’t pose a real threat in attack. We created a number of chances in the first half, but our right winger Quenten Hose scored just once. In the second half we missed two big chances and hit the post twice, so I criticised our finishing in the post-match team talk. We could have dropped points easily here - Heracles only needed one corner or attempt to find a goal out of nowhere. That’s why we need to make sure earlier in the games.
Players and Tactics
Nothing to report tactically. Performance-wise we’ve managed to score goals, but struggled to get clean sheets, so there’s something to work on - we just have to keep our concentration up in defence and avoid conceding avoidable goals.
Most of the results have come our way, but I’m disappointed with the inconsistency of most of our players and I don’t feel that we play as well as we should. Wingers have been under my special scrutiny in October - Nikita Tamm had one good performance in Nijmegen, but disappeared completely in matches with bigger opponents. Ja-Ryong Kim started against Heracles instead of him, but failed to impress. Quenten Hose scored the winner against AS Roma and Heracles, but at the same time missed more chances in front of goal than I count.
Player of the Month: Ognjen Rajkovic - very difficult choice, because we changed so many players in the line-ups and there were just four games, but Rajkovic started against PSV and NEC Nijmegen and was very good in both of those games, getting on the score sheet as well.Goal of the Month: Quenten Hose vs. AS Roma - not because of the finish, but the passing combination that led to the goal and the sheer importance of that win.
Eredivisie
We still face close competition from Vitesse and PSV Eindhoven. Extremely surprised to see FC Groningen in the relegation zone (the club who’s in the Champions League this season!). SC Cambuur, on the other hand, looks like a clear relegation material. PEC Zwolle are probably the overachievers of the season so far.
Champions League
So far, so good. The home win against AS Roma helped us enormously.
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September 2031
Five games in September. The Champions League starts with a must win home game against AGF, but the Eredivisie schedule offers some tricky away fixtures against mid-table teams. My main concern is not to lose points until Prince Aning is fit again (he could be back for the Barcelona match, but we’ll know in a few weeks).
It was nice to see our loan player Loet van Fessem start for ADO Den Haag in our first game of the month, but it was he who lost possession to John Meeuwis and we scored a quick goal in 12’ to take charge of the match. ADO equalised with a good header from close range, but a penalty restored our lead before half-time and the second penalty, awarded in the second half, made it sure. Penalties surely helped us, because we didn’t create too many opportunities from open play and ADO-s 5-2-3 WB formation packed their box with five players at most times.
The home game against AGF turned out to be a walkover. We scored from a set piece early on and went to the half-time with a 2:0 lead, but the defining factor was that AGF had two men sent off in the first half, so we cruised after the break and finished the match with five goals. Kenneth Taylor produced the best goal of the night with a thunderous strike from 20 metres.
We continued this form at Heerenveen - I anticipated a much more difficult away game, but I suppose Heerenveen made some serious tactical errors, because their defence looked all over the place and we found gaps and spaces between the lines and defenders easily. Finishing was excellent as well, Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and John Meeuwis scored a brace and Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi found himself at the score sheet too.
After two impressive results we hosted Fortuna Sittard at Johan Cruijff Arena. This game had ups and downs for as, starting off with a missed penalty by Kenneth Taylor. Then Hlynsson and Meeuwis combined two good goals in four minutes to give us a solid lead, but Fortuna stunned us with a counter-attack in 30’. Because of that our second half was a little bit nervous and our third goal kept itself waiting until Rajkovic scored from a corner to put this result beyond doubt. Decent win.
Away game at Camp Nou was not supposed to be easy. I used our Champions League setup, but it still resulted in conceding two goals in the first 20 minutes. Barcelona players were just so technically gifted and managed to dismantle our defence with their measured passes. One good attack from us in 40’ made it 1:2 before half-time and gave us some hope for the second half, that if we’re lucky we might steal a point from here. This didn’t happen - we kept our defence more-less in order after half-time, but couldn’t create anything dangerous (just 3 key passes in the whole game and 3/2 shots for us), so a bit disappointing result, but at least we didn’t suffer more serious beating and we kept the final score respectable.
Tactics and Players
Tactically our positive 4-2-3-1 formation has gotten us through from domestic games easily. I expected tricky away matches and perhaps somewhat stronger opposition from ADO Den Haag and sc Heerenveen, but we felt fairly comfortable against them.
The Champions League setup was tested against FC Barcelona, but the results were inconclusive - we were pretty much dominated in the game, but we got a goal in an away match, so it hints that in the right circumstances we might stun big teams with this tactic.
The players have done incredibly well. Our main concern was Richard Svec at the left-back position, but the youngster has done OK to fill the gap in our team and has developed incredibly in the process. His performances are mediocre, because he’s not really in the first team level and I ordered him to play it safe and take less risks with the ball, so clearly his impact in attack is much lower than Prince Aning’s, but that’s OK. His main job has been to avoid mistakes defensively and not to give away easy chances, and he’s done really well in that regard in Eredivisie games. Aning should be fully fit for our first league game in October, so we don’t have to rely on Svec too much in the future.
I’m happy with the progress of both Claidel Muringen and Mohamed Tahiri in midfield - both have trained well and performed OK, too. Kenneth Taylor is our leading scorer in midfield with 6 goals, but he has got many chances from the penalty spot, so that explains it. Nikita Tamm has continued to find a goal and he has earned us some penalties, too, so good form continues for him. John Meeuwis has scored six goals in the league. He’s a different kind of forward than Dramane Guehi - Meeuwis plays as PFa and doesn’t contribute much in build-up, but he’s there to finish off his chances and his composure has been evident in September.
Player of the Month: Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson - scored four goals in September and was really driving our attack forward. Even in our worst match against Barcelona it was Hlynsson who managed to create a goal. The Icelander is in fine form.
Goal of the Month: Kenneth Taylor vs. AGF - a lot of penalties for Taylor this season, but this was beautifully struck from 20 metres.
Eredivisie
Six games played and we’re at the top of the table, but Vitesse have started incredibly well and share the top with 18 points from their matches. So far it’s been clear that some of the contestants (AZ Alkmaar, FC Utrecht) are not up to the challenge for the title this season, but the competition is still fairly tight.
Champions League Group G
Quite as expected - we won at home against AGF easily and struggled at Camp Nou. Important games are the ones against AS Roma.
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August 2031
Fixtures and Results
The Johan Cruijff Schaal final was a bit of a revenge match because of the two finals we lost against FC Utrecht in the last season, but this time we didn’t give them any chances - two goals in the first half put us in charge and FC Utrecht were sinking without trace. Mohamed Tahiri headed in from a corner in 76’ to make it 3:0. It was a very convincing win because we had 64% possession and FC Utrecht didn’t get any chances in the full ninety minutes. An excellent start to our season.
The first league game was at home and Sparta Rotterdam came to visit. Nothing too difficult on paper and we should have won that easily, but we couldn’t find a goal at first - we had a number of set pieces and even created chances from them, but couldn’t finish them off and at the other end of the pitch Sparta had two decent opportunities as well (perhaps partly because Olivier Aertssen served his suspension and defensive partnership of Rajkovic and Can Tas didn’t work together too well). Things got easier in the second half when Sparta’s Jürgen Braun was dismissed for a dangerous tackle on Quenten Hose and in the final ten minutes we finally were on the mark - John Meeuwis broke the deadlock and Kenneth Taylor wrapped things up with a penalty in injury time. In the end we had 26 shots with 3.67 xG - should have finished better.
Trip to visit the newly promoted SC Cambuur was an equally difficult feat - Nikita Tamm scored with an accurate volley to give us the lead, but Prince Aning was carried off the pitch with an injury soon after the goal and it affected our match. 17 years old Richard Svec came on for him to make his first team debut. We had some good chances to extend our lead, but couldn’t finish (again!) - Olivier Aertssen headed against the crossbar and Nikita Tamm wasted a clear cut chance in the second half. We weren’t in trouble defensively and didn’t concede any chances, but I would have much preferred the second goal.
The last match in August was the Noord-Hollandse derby at home. Our main concern was left defence - Prince Aning’s injury that he suffered in the last league game was a pretty serious one and sprained knee ligaments will keep him out for 4-6 weeks, so Richard Svec (who had just turned 17) started as our left full-back. We started well and soon Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi delivered a low cross into the six yard box where Nikita Tamm was ready to score with a simple tap-in. Despite our lead there was a certain anxiousness in the team and in 17’ AZ’s Ludwe Sibiya got through our defence, only to be denied by Riswan Sinaga. AZ’s equaliser came out of nowhere, though, when their midfielder Aymen Barkok hit the scorcher into our top corner from 27 metres. The penalty in 33’ restored our lead and our position improved a lot in 43’ when AZ’s Manfred Ugalde received his second yellow card and was sent off. We dominated possession in the second half (obviously, because we were 11 against 10), but couldn’t turn it into goals, even though we created some good chances and Olivier Aertssen headed against the crossbar from a corner. Substitutions looked risky, because most of our bench seemed nervous despite our lead. It remained 2:1 and I was pleased with a win, but I feel our second half performance was a disappointment. We should have grabbed AZ by the neck and finished them off after Ugalde’s dismissal, but we failed to do that.
Overall I’m pleased with our results in August and to start with three wins in Eredivisie marks a good start.
Players and Tactics
Nothing interesting to report tactically there. Players have done what was expected of them and defensively we’ve looked fairly good. Prince Aning’s injury is an obvious concern before September.
Nikita Tamm has been impressive in attack - he has two league goals in August and it looks like the form he had in the first half of the last season has returned. At least he’s getting into the right positions and taking his chances. John Meeuwis has started all four games and so far he’s done OK. Stanis Idumbo Muzambo and Ja-Ryong Kim have not featured as much, but that’s an extra gear we have in the coming weeks.
Player of the Month: Kenneth Taylor - since that friendly against Arsenal where he scored a brace he’s been outstanding - two penalties in the competitive matches and one assist to add. He’s been excellent in every single game so far.
Goal of the Month: Nikita Tamm vs. FC Utrecht - not so much because of the simple finish, but because of the cheeky backheel pass from John Meeuwis that set Tamm up for the goal
Eredivisie
Three clubs have three straight wins so far, with PSV Eindhoven and Vitesse sharing the lead with us. Feyenoord lost a match against FC Utrecht. AZ Alkmaar has had a long Summer in Conference League qualification and their Eredivisie form has suffered because of that and last season’s sensation FC Groningen is also low in the table.
Champions League
The draw landed us in the group G with Barcelona, AS Roma and AGF (that is Aarhus from Denmark). While the Danish are way out of their depth in this group, AS Roma are tricky opponents and like always, away fixtures (and ability to get at least a point out of those) are key.
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Squad Update 2031
GoalkeepersWe have only one true first team goalkeeper in Riswan Sinaga (although Calvin Francis is pushing up from Jong Ajax). He doesn’t seem exceptional attribute-wise, but he’s surely talented and only 20 years old. Despite that young age he played 48 games in the last season and showed remarkable fitness (his injury susceptibility is below average) so he’s quite reliable for the whole season.
Defence
Here we have a solid first team trio that’s my preference for important matches - Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi on the right, Olivier Aertssen in the middle and Prince Aning on the left. Left centre-back position is shared between Can Tas and Ognjen Rajkovic (and mainly decided by how tall the opposition strikers are, because Can Tas isn’t really an aerial power).
The main strength in our defence is that key players are reaching their best years of football. The main weakness, however, is that those influential players have usually just ‘balanced’ personalities and aren’t suitable mentors.
Jasper Vogels left this Summer and we will probably miss his versatility, but instead we have several youngsters stepping up to fill the ranks.
Giorgio Jongebloet featured in the last season as well and the 18 years old right-back has played in 12 Eredivisie games - he’s resilient, determined, brave, aggressive and with a good work rate, so he has all the necessary qualities to become a great player.
In the central defence we have Rik Vos, who spent a year on loan in Belgium. Vos looks like a good prospect - no real weaknesses, and he’s tall (!) compared to most of our centre-backs.
On the left side I needed a replacement for Vogels and promoted 16 years old Slovak talent Richard Svec to the first team. The boy is arguably not ready for first team football, but he’s another defender with excellent determination, teamwork and work rate attributes, so I expect him to develop quickly.
Midfield
No real changes here - Kenneth Taylor and Claidel Muringen are our go-to pair in midfield. Mohamed Tahiri can play as an attacking midfielder, but proved in last season that he can fill the BBMs role, too. Young Ruben Sergio is here just to fill the numbers and (perhaps) provide some resting minutes for Taylor if the game is decided, but in times of need I much prefer to drop Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson down to DLPd if Taylor is not available.
Attacking Midfield
At the moment attacking midfield looks like our strongest area on the pitch. On the right we have Amourricho van Axel Dongen who can score and assist. Quenten Hose has provided some competition for him for the place in the line-up - he’s young, quick, agile and good with the ball. Hose can be young, but he scored 6 goals and assisted 7 more in Eredivisie last season.
In the middle we have Icelandic international Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson (possibly our most creative players and also our corner taker), Stanis Idumbo Muzambo (probably the best player with the ball) and Peter Misidjan who is just 22 years old, but it feels like he’s been around forever.
On the left we have Estonian Nikita Tamm (who plays as IFs), a very inconsistent player, although his attributes are great, and South Korean international Ja-Ryong Kim (who is a Ws) - a player with great flair and the one who created most chances in Eredivisie games in the last season.
There are no really young prospects in the first team at the moment, but there’s some interest in our key players and if there’s an opening in the January, we have some options to come in from Jong Ajax.
Strikers
Dramane Guehi has left, so John Meeuwis has to carry the load this season. He’s a wonderful talent - just 20 years old but finished the last season with 19 goals from 16 starts - but he can’t play as a CFa, so we go with PFa with both him and Koen Verlijsdonk. Verlijsdonk can certainly expect to get more minutes this season, as his game time was rather limited last year. He has certain weaknesses (like low rate, not too accurate passing and poor concentration), but he’s quick and can score and has a lot of flair, so that’s a start.
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Summer 2031
Transfer Window
After reaching the Champions League semi finals in Spring, I knew that there will be some departures this Summer. Quick look at our squad list indicated that we have a number of players reaching their prime and being in the Ajax first eleven at 24-25 years of age, it’s the right moment to step up and move to Premier League, Serie A or La Liga if the player wants to further his career.
The first unavoidable loss was Dramane Guehi - the African striker moved to PSG in June for the club record £75m + clauses. He was probably the best player (by ability) in the team and way too good for Eredivisie. At some point he was valued for around £100m, but it’s always tricky to get an actual bid for that amount and I settled for the offer that PSG made. I’m not overly worried about our attack, because we still have John Meeuwis who can contribute and develop in Ajax for a couple of seasons, at least.
The second departure was Jasper Vogels - a versatile defender who went to Everton for £30,5m - a decent fee for him and I hope he’ll do well in the Premier League. We have a few younger options for full-back positions to replace him.
We also loaned out youngsters Anass Sarpong and Loet van Fessem for the next season to get them some first team experience.
The Club
We have improvements for training facilities and youth facilities in progress this Summer and it looks like the board is willing to invest into the club, so they proposed to increase coaching staff wages (a thought that I was delighted to accept).
With training facilities and youth facilities improved, I also managed to convince the board to increase the junior coaching budget.
Our finances are huge. Selling Dramane Guehi and Jasper Vogels in June for a combined £105m brought our bank balance to £1,2b and so I received a curious message that the club has directed a large portion of those funds into investment reserves. I’ve never seen anything like that, but more than £300m disappeared from our books and I have no clue where they are or if we ever can use it if we need to.
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On 17/02/2024 at 17:07, Blodyxe said:
10 amazing years! Tremendous job, and hopefully, you'll get the big ears in the future. May I ask, who has been your favorite player in the save?
Thanks.
About Champions League - it's not the main target. Obviously I try to do as well as I can, but because my youth only policy and transfer policy that allows best players to leave I know that I'm always handicapped compared to big teams and sometimes it's just too difficult to compete with them. I know that I do most of the times everything right tactically, but if the individual level of players is so much higher in the other team, it's really difficult to prevent all goals you concede.
I have won the Champions League in previous versions of FM with the same 'youth only' strategy. I believe I won in FM16, but in FM20 I reached to the semi-final once. Here in FM22 I've got to the semi final several times, so it builds a platform, but let's see how it goes.
About favourite player - that's a tough question.
From the initial group of players it's difficult to choose, because in almost every FM and every Ajax save you have a lot of interest in the players from big clubs and several of the players are sold in early years, so Ryan Gravenberch? Because he has a great potential that is obvious from the start and I managed to keep him around for some years to get the maximum out of him before allowing him to move forward with his career. But I also felt attached to Daley Blind and Davy Klaassen, because they were true leaders on the pitch and remained in the club almost to the end of their careers (and Klaassen continued to be part of our coaching staff after hanging his boots).
From regens I have to say that Dramane Guehi has reached the highest ability level so far - driven personality, a lot of talent, experience on both club and international level. He's the first player in the team who has been touted to have around £100m transfer value and because of that he's probably the biggest talent who has come from our youth ranks into the first team in those 10 seasons I've been in charge.
1 -
Competitions
We won our tenth Eredivisie title in a row (a small reminder, that I’ve been managing Ajax for ten years already) and this time it was a rather impressive campaign. We pretty much ran away with the title after the New Year and clinched it at the beginning of April, so the second part of the season was pretty relaxed.
It was a great Champions League campaign. Reaching the quarter finals counts as a very successful season for us, but the semi final is quite exceptional. Perhaps we had a bit of luck to get Hertha in the first knockout round, but beating Chelsea proved that we deserved to be there and with this squad managed to be very competitive until the end. We were called the biggest overachievers of the competition as a result.
Champions League final was Italy’s inner affair and Inter beat Juventus in the final (ex-Ajax player Gabrial Misehouy scored a goal for the winners!)
Domestic cups continue to escape from us and we were beaten twice by FC Utrecht - firstly in the Johan Cruijff Schaal final and then in the KNVB Beker Final. It means that FC Utrecht seems to have a real knack for the cup silverware. My inability to win the KNVB Beker two seasons in a row was the main criticism from the board and players alike.
Jong Ajax had a pretty good season with 7th place finish in Keuken Kampioen Divisie, while our academy youngsters finished 2nd in the table after AZ Alkmaar U-19.
Players
The main question before the season was our goalkeeper and how Riswan Sinaga will do in goal after Mert Alegoz departed to FC Barcelona. In the end the young goalkeeper did fairly well - not an exceptional season, but sold enough and he finished as runner-up in the Eredivisie Goalkeeper of the Year category. Not bad for a 19 years old bloke. He developed well throughout the season and has a much better ability for next year.
Our defence looked solid throughout the season, although a serious injury to Ognjen Rajkovic left us a little bit thin in the centre-back department. On the other hand Jasper Vogels provided cover for both full-back positions and in the second part of the season young Giorgio Jongebloet started to get first team appearances, so that helped to increase our options. Prince Aning sometimes featured for the Holland national team (and sometimes didn’t) so in and out of international football. Our key defensive players start to get into their prime years, so I expect them to mix ability with experience in the coming seasons.
In midfield we were thin. Team captain Kenneth Taylor carried a huge load. Young Claidel Muringen filled the BBMs role - wasn’t exceptional, but wasn’t terrible either and more attacking midfielders Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson and Mohamed Tahiri had to drop to deeper positions once in a while to provide rotation options. Hlynsson excelled as DLPd in several games, so that was a nice surprise, but at some point I included some youngsters like Ruben Sergio or Jaap Prinsen who were clearly not ready for first team football.
Attacking midfield seemed to work the best, even Nikita Tamm was great in the first half of the season (but his form dropped dramatically since March). We had the most options in attacking midfield and at some point it seemed that however I rotated, we still managed to create chances and score goals. Young winger Quenten Hose emerged to the AMR IWa position this season.
In attack Dramane Guehi was clearly our best striker, but John Meeuwis also scored 19 goals for the club and I had the luxury to rotate even our best players. Guehi was away at AFCON in January and our attack didn’t skip a beat. With two such good players in front of him, Koen Verlijsdonk struggled to get into the team.
Eredivisie Awards
I rotated a lot and that left a mark to our award season. Olivier Aertssen managed to collect 30 games in Eredivisie and retained his Golden Boot award, but my rotation policy and AFCON didn’t allow Dramane Guehi to get enough goals to reach top three in the top goalscorer charts. As I already mentioned Riswan Sinaga was the runner-up in the Goalkeeper of the Year category and we made a clean sweep in the Young Player of the Year list.
After a brief pause I was again selected as the manager’s manager of the year by my peers.
Elsewhere in the World
Meanwhile, Leicester City surprised everyone by winning the Premier League again after 15 years (wow!)
1 -
May 2031
Four games in May and our main focus is on the second leg match in Turin. Remaining Eredivisie fixture list is rather difficult and offers strong opponents, but the results don’t matter, so we can ignore what happens there.
We started with a home game against Vitesse and there was a hint of revenge in this match, because we lost our away game against them 1:4, if some of you remember that - our only defeat this Eredivisie season. The first half was a rather uneventful one, until Quenten Hose had a good chance to score just before the half-time whistle, but the right winger hit the post from a good position. The second half was a little bit better - Stanis Idumbo Muzambo and John Meeuwis missed their chances, but we got a penalty after a Vitesse player handballed in the box and Kenneth Taylor scored from the spot. Peter Misidjan returned from an injury and was available for selection for this match and he came on in the second half to score after a good team move in 88’ and that made it 2:0. A solid win in the end. Our attack looked much better after the break.
And there was the day - the second leg in Turin, against Juventus, with a decent 2:1 lead from home in our bag. The players looked rested enough, although we had to do without Nikita Tamm (who picked up a knock in the Vitesse game) and Ognjen Rajkovic. I started with the same tactics that proved to be successful against Chelsea, but I have to say that Juventus dominated the first half - they a few good chances, but also eight corners in the first period and 70-80% of those corners led to a dangerous header that they won in our box and that was a serious threat. We had a quiet first half ,but in 41’ Dramane Guehi had a great chance to score, but his shot was held by the Juventus keeper and this was the sort of chance you need to take in the game against teams like Juventus. Unfortunately, Juventus used their opportunities better in the second half - Sandro Veloso scored their first goal in 55’ and stunned us with a chip in 88’ that gave them aggregate win over two legs. Our chances dried up in the second half and eventually our shooting was just 5/2 in this game - nowhere near good enough to get anything from an away match and Juventus were deserved winners, while our campaign ended in the semi final.
We then managed to beat AZ Alkmaar quite comfortably. I say, comfortably, because we took the lead after a fairly even first half and Dramane Guehi doubled his tally in the second half to make it 2:0. At the same time AZ managed to get some shots in, but didn’t create any real chances in this match and although we didn’t have a dominating performance, we didn’t look under pressure either. Home fans obviously helped (and/or AZ just didn’t dare to take too many risks in an away game). A bit bland for a derby, but so it was.
The last game in Eredivisie was the Topper derby at Philips Stadion. We obviously wanted to win because it was against our rivals, but PSV were undefeated in the league since we beat them in January and looked very confident, so perhaps it wasn’t a wonder that they managed to score the first goal - their attacking midfielder Fran Villalba looked well marked by Olivier Aertssen, but still managed to put a places shot next to the post. We then wasted a number of chances in the first half and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson was denied by the crossbar with his attempt from some way out, so the first half finished 0:1. Hlynsson found the net with a nice volley in 57’ to score an equaliser. We had initiative for the most of the second half, but couldn’t find the winner. PSV’s left-back Kevin Paredes was sent off after a dreadful two-footed lunge on Stanis Idumbo Muzambo in 78’ and then we obviously had an initiative and in the end John Meeuwis managed to score the late winner to put the final touches to our pretty wonderful season. Tough match, but great second half performance and a dramatic winner that sent the fans home happy.
Players and Tactics
Strong opponents in May demanded less rotation from the squad, but we fared well against other Eredivisie teams and there were some good performances from the players.
Just a few injury problems in May - we still missed Ognjen Rajkovic, but Nikita Tamm and Amourricho van Axel Dongen had also problems with minor traumas and had to skip some games.
Some landmarks were also reached in May - Dramane Guehi’s second goal against AZ Alkmaar was the 100th league goal of his career.
Player of the Month: Kenneth Taylor - one of the few players who had a decent match against Juventus, but he also scored from the spot against Vitesse and was the man of the match in the PSV game with a number of chances he created.
Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. PSV Eindhoven - expertly placed shot by the young striker that won us the derby.
Eredivisie
We have a huge lead in the table at the end of the season. 23 points - wow. FC Groningen managed to hold on to their second place and FC Utrecht can be really happy with their season - finished 3rd in the league and won the KNVB Beker. Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven finished in Europa League places.
Go Ahead Eagles and NAC Breda were relegated - no surprises there. FC Twente managed to keep their place after the play-offs, but I still wonder why they underperform so often and find themselves perilously close to relegation in every other season.
0
[FM22] AFC Ajax - Best Youth System In Europe
in FM Career Updates
Posted
December 2032
Fixtures and Results
November was good for us, and partly because the most difficult games were at Johan Cruijff Arena and home advantage helped us a lot in those matches. December seems to be a bit different - we have a trip to San Siro coming up and the Klassieker Derby coming up right after that and before Christmas we’ll go to Arnhem to meet Vitesse in what could be one of the toughest games of our Eredivisie season. But at least the draw in KNVB Beker has been favourable and we got amateurs Spakenburg in the second round. In most seasons we had to play at least Keuken Kampioen Divisie level clubs in the second round, so this should be a lot easier and at least one game where we could relax a little and rotate a lot.
Our trip to Sittard offered little to be happy about. It was a drab match from us and we struggled to create chances and (almost like from a movie scenario) Fortuna scored from 24 metres in 88’. For a moment it looked like we would return with a very unfair defeat, but Quenten Hose stepped up - his header hit the crossbar, but in the next attack he found an equaliser to rescue us a point. It was a bit unlucky for us to concede that goal, because Fortuna didn’t get any real chances in the match and our defence looked solid enough, but that’s football and I have to be happy with our come-back, at least.
The battle at San Siro was just as difficult as expected. AC Milan controlled the first half almost completely. Diyae-Eddine Jermoumi struggled to contain Rafael Leao on our right flank and indeed he scored in 25’ to make it 0:1. We got our first good opportunity of the match no earlier than 54’, but generally had to defend against AC Milan attacks and when Hamed Traore hit the post in 70’ I felt we were lucky not to be 0:2 or 0:3 behind. But this time the football gods smiled on us - Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson produced a moment of magic, got away from his defender and sent the ball into the far post from a fairly narrow angle - an excellent goal and that left AC Milan too little time to respond. In fact, we had a promising free kick in injury time, but Kenneth Taylor couldn’t get it over the wall. Our shooting was just 6/4 in this game, but we got the goal and the result we needed to win the group.
Feyenoord came to Johan Cruijff Arena with a very defensive game plan and 5-2-3 WB formation that packed their third with players, so it was really difficult to find space in attack. Neither of the two teams could create anything in the first half, although a couple of our attempts landed against woodwork. Feyenoord, in turn, were happy to defend and didn’t record any attempts in the first half. However, after the break their striker Simon Roger Nlandu headed against our crossbar to remind us that they, too, can attack. The breakthrough finally came in 73’ - Mohamed Tahiri came on for Peter Misidjan a couple of minutes later and while he has mostly featured in midfield, this time he was higher in AMCa position. It took just a few minutes until Prince Aning passed him the ball and Tahiri, with just some space around him in the box, curled it nicely into the top corner. An excellent strike, and a moment of individual skill just like that was needed to get us a valuable 1:0 win. Not the most exciting match in statistics - Feyenoord didn’t create any opportunities for themselves and we had just one half-chance in the whole game, and just 0.79 xG - but it’s so important to win those rival derbies. Also, three points to the table doesn’t hurt either. The Feyenoord manager Radhi Jaidi later admitted that I got under his skin with my pre-match comments. There seems to develop some sort of mutual dislike between me and Jaidi that will spice future press conferences, because he’s not happy to lose to us and I don’t think his conduct after those losses has been good enough. Just a few days later Jaidi left Feyenoord to take the new position at West Ham United, so I got rid of him in Eredivisie.
Small amateur side Spakenburg were unfortunate to play their KNVB Beker match at Johan Cruijff Arena in front of 45,000 spectators, and they were mercilessly beaten 8:0 by my youngsters and rotation players. Mohamed Tahiri shone in the first half, scoring a hat-trick and looking excellent from set pieces (also scored one goal from a free kick). Koen Verlijsdonk also finished the match with three goals. Spakenburg finished the match with 9 men and that didn’t make the task easier for them. From our side Anass Sarpong received a red card after a careless tackle in the second half, but his dismissal didn’t affect us much. We had over 40 attempts in this game with 6 clear cut chances (16 chances in total) and xG over 7.00 - Spakenburg players couldn’t wait for this one to get over.
FC Groningen could be a tough team to break - they proved as much at Euroborg and showed really good defence in the first half against us at Johan Cruijff Arena, but after the break cracks began to appear. Anass Sarpong played on the left wing for us and Groningen struggled to contain him. At first Jermoumi found Sarpong in front of the goal with a cross and although the attempt was blocked by the arriving defender, the loose ball fell to John Meeuwis who scored into the empty goal. Then Sarpong was fouled twice in three minutes inside the FC Groningen box. Kenneth Taylor bottled the first penalty, but scored from the second and at 2:0 it looked like a sure deal. Anass Sarpong later found John Meeuwis in the box with a nice cross and our striker doubled his tally to wrap things up at 3:0. Excellent second half performance and with 4 clear cut chances that we created, FC Groningen had to accept that their defence didn’t hold for a full ninety minutes in this match.
Then it was time to travel to Arnhem and meet Vitesse. Our closest competitors had dropped some more points and were five points behind us before the match, so it was a chance for us to take the gap to eight before Christmas if we played at our best level. It was a tough game and at half time we were trailing 0:1. Both teams had one good chance in the first half; Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson saw his attempt being tipped over by the goalkeeper, but Vitesse’s Prince Lomboto stunned us on the counter-attack and our opponents looked fairly confident after that goal. I thought to myself that we might need to take more risks in the second half and maybe snatch a draw, but turning the game around didn’t seem possible, until Vitesse’s midfielder Luka Bleick received his second yellow card in 59’ and was sent off - the first event that changed things for us. The second was Quenten Hose who came on and found an equaliser and for the remaining 20-30 minutes we kept Vitesse under pressure in their third, until we finally played their defence apart in injury time. Hose was again in the middle of things - he had a decent look on goal, but played the ball unselfishly to Anass Sarpong who was in even better position and could score into the empty net. Great comeback win for us, crucial points to the table and a big lead going into the Winter break. Vitesse could rue their red card, but I remember that things played out almost in exactly the same way one year ago when we also met Vitesse at Gelredome in the last match before Christmas. They took the lead back then as well, but were left with 10 men in 59’ exactly like it happened now and eventually we ran out as 3:2 winners. History repeated itself a lot in this match. Vitesse’s manager John van den Brom probably wonders why they couldn’t finish the game without a red card against us and how to keep that hard-fought 1:0 lead at GelreDome next time.
Tactics and Players
It’s been a difficult month in the winger's department. We already miss Amourricho van Axel Dongen, but Ja-Ryong Kim was also sidelined for those weeks with a training injury and it means we missed two of our best left wingers. Without proper substitutions Quenten Hose and Anass Sarpong look fatigued. I tried Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson on the left flank in De Klassieker Derby, but he had a really poor match in an unfamiliar role, so it’s been a struggle. I don’t have any good options from Jong Ajax either (Bence Kertesz is away on loan), so we’ve left to struggle until Kim returns after Christmas.
Can Tas finally settled down and let me know that he’ll be content to stay at Ajax for the time being. I still believe he has potential as a midfielder, although he’s unhappy with his new position training.
Claidel Muringen, however, has failed to sign a new contract with us, although there have been two rounds of negotiations in December. It looks like the player himself is expecting a new deal and wants to stay in Amsterdam, but his agent is one of the most stubborn ones I’ve met in recent seasons, demanding now pretty much £30,000 p/w for an average squad player and every time I try to push it down for two thousand pounds, he cuts the negotiations and pretends to be butthurt. My next advice will be for Muringen to sack his agent, because I’m not sure he has the player’s best interests in mind.
On a more positive note - our 16 years old defender Frank Goossens started to train with our first team and he was handed his debut in the game against Spakenburg from a substitution. He almost found the goal there as well, heading against the post from a corner, but that fairy tale didn’t happen. Nevertheless he’s an exceptional talent and I expect him to make his breakthrough soon.
Player of the Month: Mohamed Tahiri - the midfielder didn’t start in all games (and his average rating was intact because he didn’t feature in the difficult match in Milan), but he was solid when he played, scored a crucial goal for us in the Klassieker Derby and added a hat-trick in the cup game.
Goal of the Month: Mohamed Tahiri vs. Feyenoord Rotterdam - really well taken strike from the substitute in a crucial moment of the derby
Youth Intake Preview
Looks incredibly promising. A striker, centre-back and attacking midfielder. We don’t really need a talented striker (after last season’s intake), but I’ll take a talented midfielder with a determined personality, thankyouverymuch.
Eredivisie
Strong results in December have given us an eight points lead in the table and that’s a pretty huge gap around Christmas. We’ve gathered 40 points from the first 17 games and that’s enough to mount a solid title challenge. The other clubs are struggling with inconsistency a little and nobody has been able to put together a really strong first half of the season.
Surprise package ADO Den Haag find themselves in European places in December - they’ve been in really good form so far and clear overachievers this season, but after Christmas their manager Patrick Kluivert left for new challenges and I suspect it will affect their performances after New Year.
There are four clubs distinctly at the bottom of the table, but Almere City have turned things around a little in December and look very optimistic - five games without a defeat, including victories over their nearest rivals have raised them above relegation zone, while Fortuna Sittard have dropped lower and lower in the table, eventually costing their manager and club legend Mark van Bommel his position as a manager. Fortuna lured Almere City’s Maurice Steijn away (and I’m wondering whether Almere’s good form stopped there).
There have been a lot of manager movements in December. As I already mentioned, Rahdi Jaidi left Feyenoord Rotterdam and our rivals hired Andreas Heraf as his successor. David De Gea was sacked by FC Utrecht right before Christmas - Utrecht are aiming for European places at least and De Gea hasn’t been able to give them enough points to do that, so their board probably felt it was time for a change.
And last (but not least) FC Emmen’s Steve Mandanda left his post to take on a new adventure at Lille
Champions League
One point at San Siro helped us to win the group, but the group stage offered little surprises and all the teams who progressed looked fairly strong. I could have hoped to get Lyon or Borussia Dortmund in the first knockout round, but instead we will go against Inter. So, back to San Siro we go. That’s a tough match-up and we’d do really well to reach the quarter finals.
Other clubs from Holland failed to surprise - FC Utrecht picked up just one point in group A and finished fourth. PSV managed to surprise PSG 2:1 at Eindhoven, but couldn’t capitalise on that win, and a draw and defeat to Panathinaikos kept them also in fourth place with four points. Certainly a disappointment for them.
In the Europa League Feyenoord finished in second place in their group and moved forward to the first knockout round.