Ajax Eyes Eredivisie Glory After Years of Chaos and Change

Ajax's Unexpected Revival: From Rock Bottom to Dominance

For fans of Ajax, the past couple of years felt like a never-ending nightmare. The club, once the pride of Dutch football, seemed to lose its soul after Erik ten Hag left for Manchester United in 2022. What followed was the kind of meltdown that big clubs usually read about in horror stories, not live through. It started with an exodus—top players and trusted staff packed their bags, leaving Ajax scrambling to pick up the pieces. Leadership changed hands so often it was hard to keep track, and the famous red-and-white kit suddenly looked weighed down with bad luck.

Who could forget the dreadful 6-1 drubbing handed to Ajax by Napoli at home? That game didn't just sting—it set off a domino effect: coach Alfred Schreuder was shown the door, and the team spiraled into a record seven fixtures without a victory. Even the faithful in Amsterdam started to wonder if the club’s glory days were over. The next man in, Maurice Steijn, barely lasted a quarter of a season before Ajax found themselves, unbelievably, at the bottom of the Eredivisie table. It went from bad to worse: Ajax stumbled out of the Dutch Cup after losing 3-2 to USV Hercules—an amateur team. The press called it the Cup's biggest ever upset, and honestly, it was hard to argue. By the end of the 2023-24 campaign, even loyal supporters felt deflated after a humiliating 6-0 thrashing by Feyenoord, with Ajax landing in fifth place—an astonishing 35 points behind the champions, PSV Eindhoven.

How Ajax Hit Reset—and the Man Who Changed Everything

The only thing keeping Ajax in the headlines last year was trouble. The club’s off-field problems were just as ugly—Marc Overmars, the club’s director, resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal that rocked Dutch football. What followed was a messy overhaul in the boardroom, bringing a sense of uncertainty from the office straight onto the pitch. The proud club seemed cursed by indecision, unable to settle on a plan or a leader for more than a few months at a time.

But sometimes, if you hit the absolute bottom, the only way is up. Enter John Farioli, hired last summer when the rest of Europe was still raising eyebrows at Ajax’s freefall. Pundits didn’t trust him. Supporters didn’t know him. But Farioli quietly got to work, blending Ajax’s tradition of attacking play with organizational discipline. Something clicked. Key wins against Feyenoord and PSV turned the atmosphere in the locker room—and the stands—from resignation to cautious hope. Ajax started stringing together results, climbing the table, and, before anyone even dared dream, they’d secured Champions League football again by finishing inside the league’s top three.

Doubts about John Farioli and the team haven’t completely vanished—old wounds take time to heal—but even club legends like Ronald de Boer and John Van ‘t Schip have spoken about “real, visible progress.” That’s not just nostalgia talking. With five matches left and a nine-point lead, Ajax can all but taste the Eredivisie crown. After weathering humiliating defeats, off-field scandals, and backroom chaos, this squad is proving that you can rebuild a football giant—even after it’s come to a grinding halt. If Ajax seal the deal, their Dutch football rivals will know: the giants of Amsterdam, battered but unbroken, are back—and this comeback is anything but ordinary.