[CM Story] make AJAX great again!
In late 2010, after six seasons without a league title and declining results on the European stage, Johan Cruijff decided to step up at his home club AFC Ajax. Under his influence the tide was...
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A lot of familiar names in that setup! Jordi Cruyff (sorry, that's the way I've always seen it spelled), Jonk, Bergkamp and Capellas, a quite famous character in Denmark due to his assistant role to Thomas Frank in Brøndby, before coaching the U21 national team and a short spell with FC Midtjylland as well. Now I just looked him up, and he's apparently been an assistant to Jordi in a Chinese club, so I suppose you've done your homework when fact-checking this new group of leaders in Ajax.
They are all connected to the Cruyff Football Institute, which is a real thing (check cruyfffootball.com or cruyffinstitute.com), which is lead by Jordi and Wim Jonk. Capellas was also assistant to (another Cruijff adept) Peter Bosz more than once, including a spell at Maccabi Tel Aviv when Jordi was Director of Football there. And Ruben Jongkind is tied to Wim Jonk again.
This project, where the Institute is being integrated into a club, team, or region (Mexico, Latin-America), has been tried in various places already, most notably FC Barcelona, but most recently FC Volendam (until financial issues saw Jonk and Jongkind ousted). So, this is purely about what would happen if this project was introtuced in Amsterdam and the Institute fully integrated into the organization of AFC Ajax. And their methods are quite strict and rigorous (and pricy), so when results are bad, question marks are raised quickly, but if it will go well, Ajax is going to swing again!
