AFC Ajax: Past Masters?

Man United's Europa league draw against Ajax today was met with a sharp intake of breath. Instinctively, many would feel that having to play the reigning Dutch champions, a team with one of the greatest histories on record, is a daunting, difficult prospect for a weakened United side.

But is it?

There is an awful lot to like about Ajax. This is the club that embodies our love affair with Dutch football. Boasting probably the finest youth programme in world football, the likes of Cruijff, Dennis Bergkamp, Wesley Sneijder and Rafael Van der Vaart all learned to play the game here. The philosophy of the club filtered into the Dutch 'total football' of the 1970s, powered the sublime Champions-League winning team of 1995, and then passed through Johann Cruijff to the Barcelona and Spain outfits of today. In short, it is responsible for some of the finest footballing sides we have seen in the history of the game.

However, in a game increasingly monopolised by the super-rich, today's Ajax is a club that is in danger of being left behind.

Year after year, players emerge at the Amsterdam ArenA who show themselves to be world class. In the last decade, these include Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Sneijder, Luis Suarez, Thomas Vermaelen and Nigel de Jong. The common thread? All of them were sold at their peak, and went on to reach the zeniths of their careers elsewhere. Today's star attractions, Gregory van der Wiel and teenager Christian Eriksen, the latter already compared to the Laudrup brothers, will both be at new, bigger clubs in the next twelve months. Operating a conveyor belt like this may help to ease a reported debt crisis, but as far as re-discovering former glories are concerned, Ajax is standing still.

Building a young side, then failing to maintain it, also has its knock-on effects on the pitch. Ajax has managed to win just one of the last seven Dutch titles, and finds itself in fourth place in this campaign. Perhaps most embarrassingly, with hindsight, was losing out to Steve McClaren's FC Twente for the title in 2009-10, despite a goal difference of +86. In Europe, the club has not reached the knock-out stages of the Champions League for eight years, and for five of those years has failed to qualify for the competition at all.

This is not the Ajax, therefore, that many of us remember with a mixture of admiration and fear. So how to turn things around? In its time of need, Ajax has turned to its messiah, and has almost instantly instigated the mother of all boardroom tussles currently playing out in front of the TV cameras.

Last month the Ajax supervisory board, including the goggle-eyed Edgar Davids, decided to appoint Louis van Gaal, one of the most successful coaches in Dutch history, as a director. Unfortunately, they forgot to mention this to their new board member, Johan Cruijff, who since retiring as one of the most gifted footballers the world has ever seen, has made a career out of shouting at people. He also hates Louis van Gaal.

Cue an absolutely enormous public row, complete with alleged racist remarks thrown by Cruijff at Davids. Backed by a team of Ajax coaches including Dennis Bergkamp, Ronald de Boer, Wim Jonk, Marc Overmars and Jaap Stam (what a team that would be), Cruijff has now taken the club's board to court, the appointment of van Gaal has been blocked and many senior club officials have stepped down.

If this is the drastic action needed to keep Ajax from sliding down the world football ladder, then long may it continue. But in all likelihood, even if this somehow in the club's best interests, it is unlikely to save them by the time February rolls around.