Football Season Guide

Ajax finished 2nd in the Eredivisie for a third straight year in 2016/2017, one point behind the eventual champions Feyenoord. The main goal for Ajax in every single season is to claim the league title and this will not be changed ahead of the upcoming campaign. The Amsterdam side failed to qualify for the group stage of the Champions League so they were forced to compete in the play-off round now to qualify for the group stage of the Europa League, the tournament of which they reached the final in the previous season. However, disaster struck and they were eliminated by Norwegian champions Rosenborg so there'll be no European football for the club this season which is unacceptable. Ajax finished the previous campaign off without a prize too. The preparation for the upcoming season was fiercely disturbed by the fact that 20-year-old talent Abdelhak Nouri suffered from cardiac arrhythmia during a friendly match against Werder Bremen. He will never be able to play football again because of severe and permanent brain damage that appeared as a result. This devastating news hit the squad hard and did have a serious influence on the preparatory phase before the start of the season. This incredibly sad news will go through the minds of the players on several occasions in the upcoming campaign but it might make them stronger as well. Captain Davy Klaassen has left the club and made a move to Everton while Bertrand Traore's loan from Chelsea ended and he went to Olympique Lyonnais. Talented defenders Kenny Tete and Jairo Riedewald have also decided to leave the club for an adventure outside the Netherlands because they were not regulars during the previous campaign. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, the club's former top scorer, moved from Schalke 04 for a return to Amsterdam. Second goalkeeper, Diederik Boer, returned to his former club PEC Zwolle and Benjamin van Leer, who was taken over from Roda JC, will replace him. The Ajax squad is quite small at the moment and a few players have to be added before the end of August to create more balance and give the Amsterdam side more options with another busy campaign coming up. Peter Bosz decided to leave Ajax after only one season to become the coach of Borussia Dortmund. He has been replaced by Marcel Keizer, who finished 2nd in the table with Jong Ajax in the Jupiler League after an impressive 2016/2017 campaign.