Louis van Gaal: The Ajax Years

An increasingly familiar collective groan of disappointment descended around Louis van Gaal’s ears at the final whistle of his first game in charge at Old Trafford on Saturday. Both he, and the supporters of Manchester United are however, offered solace from Van Gaal’s first managerial experience at Ajax, where, after an equally inauspicious start, he embarked on a trophy laden six-year reign and oversaw one of the most successful periods in the club's history.

Former PE teacher van Gaal had been a youth coach at Ajax when, in September 1991, its head coach, the revered Leo Beenhakker was summoned back to Real Madrid, from where he had steered them to three successive league title victories in the mid 1980’s - in order to combat the emergence of a young, thrilling team at Barcelona, under the tutelage of another Dutchman; their greatest ever player, Johann Cruyff. To the admonition of almost the entire Dutch footballing fraternity, van Gaal was unexpectedly named as Beenhakker’s successor.

Despite the hostility of the Ajax support, who had began a public campaign to pressure the Ajax board into the return of the iconic Cruyff, van Gaal indeed felt quietly confident that his squad possessed the means through which they could go on and harbour success. 

He inherited a squad already rich with rising stars, who were already fixtures in the Dutch National Team, and in youngsters Wim Jonk, Aron Winter and Dennis Bergkamp - players who were already attracting the attention of the world’s richest clubs in Italy and Spain. 

But van Gaal’s first significant move at Ajax was an acrimonious one, and has been an often repeated theme throughout his career. He marginalized, and then forced out the man widely regarded as Holland’s most pivotal player, during the resurgence of Dutch Football under Rinus Michels, and their  midfield lynchpin during The European Championships triumph in 1988; Jan Wouters. The same aversion to coaching established senior players has continued to plague LVG's managerial career. At Barcelona, the mindless decision to marginalise Rivaldo (then the world’s best player), before a similar fate befell Marc van Bommel at Bayern Munich, after starring during van Gaal’s first double winning season, prior turning his ire on Frank Ribery.

van Gaal’s very public fallout with Ajax’s established figurehead only exacerbated their erratic form, during the early period of his reign. De Amsterdammers took just 20 points from their first 16 games. Pressure mounted and the calls for van Gaal’s head grew louder and more intense. More damaging for Ajax supporters (as indeed it would be for Barca Fans), was van Gaal’s pragmatic style of football. It was cold. Clinical. Methodical. It was the very antithesis of Tootalvoetball. van Gaal proved to be no ideologue to the sacred 4-3-3 of Ajax and the Dutch DNA. His Ajax teams were the triumph of tactical pragmatism over footballing dogma.

Young Gunner - Dennis Bergkamp

He was aloof and confrontational with the Dutch media and was driven by a rigid conviction and unbending belief that his methods would bring success. He was criticized for being ‘authoritarian’ and ‘dictatorial.’ His vision of how football should be played differed markedly from that of the sacred principal’s of Ajax Totaalvoetbal. van Gaal’s Ajax was the triumph of systemic efficiency over individual brilliance. It was clinical and calculated, built around an ethic of collective discipline.

His model of success would be based on intelligence system building, with players drilled incessantly on their roles, their positional play, their individual responsibilities, and their decision making. Van Gaal’s Ajax played a high tempo possession game that relied for its success on fast compact exchanges of passes between always forward attacking players. Through this high tempo possession game, his players were drilled to probe for areas of weakness in the opposition and then ruthlessly exploit it.

Yet it was bereft of the romance and the free spirit of individualism that were the hallmarks of the great Ajax teams who had won three successive European Cups two decades earlier, but van Gaal would always vigorously defend his principles;

“Football is a team sport, and members of the team are therefore dependent on each other. If certain players do not carry out their tasks properly on the pitch, then their colleagues will suffer. This means that each player has to carry out his basic tasks to the best of his ability, and this requires a disciplined approach on the pitch.”

But while van Gaal initially found new admirers off the pitch, his players had no qualms with buying into the van Gaal philosophy. Here, Dennis Bergkamp describes van Gaal’s arrival at the helm;

"Van Gaal made us eager and ambitious. We trained meticulously. Every detail, shooting, passing, everything became more tactical. van Gaal would say, “Consider every move you make” He constantly hammered home that you had to be aware of everything you were doing. Our game was innovative, attractive to watch and enjoyable to play. If we slipped up we didn’t give up. We kept bouncing back because we stuck to van Gaal’s philosophy that the team is more important than any individual player.  Louis said time and again, “If everyone adheres to the agreements we make as a team, success will inevitably follow.”

Despite the early difficulties however, things improved dramatically. A resurgence in league form clawed back vital ground in the title race and van Gaal’s side finished as runners-up to PSV by just three points. But the league had proven to be a sideshow as van Gaal delivered Ajax’s first Uefa Cup in their history - triumph in his first season at the helm. The victory also meant that Ajax were only the second club to win all three European club trophies, after Juventus.

In its previous life, the Uefa Cup was a prestigious honour - not the bloated staged managed freakshow it has become under Platini’s much maligned and devalued Europa League guise. Ajax’s 1992 triumph was a stunning victory after around a brilliant performance against a much vaunted Torino side.  For one season at least, the Dutch upstarts had broken the Italian monopoly of the trophy.

Wim Jonk's Wonderstrike against Torino in The 1992 Uefa Cup Final.

Stefan Petterson equalizes from the penalty spot.

As van Gaal’s second season in charge began, he started to shape his true vision of what his Ajax would look like. Aron Winter was sold in a big money move to Lazio. Criss-crossing paths with the outgoing Winter were two dynamic wingers, Nigerian, Finidi George and young Dutch starlet, Marc Overmars. van Gaal’s second season proved somewhat of a disappointment, given the way his side had ended the previous campaign. A third place finish in the league was however offset by victory in the Dutch Cup.

During the close season before the 1993/94 campaign, van Gaal had sanctioned the joint departures of Wim Jonk and Dennis Bergkamp to Inter, in another huge multi-million pound deal. He had agreed to the deal after publicly declaring, to widespread derision, that he had a ready replacement for the star in Finnish unknown, Jari Litmanen.

But van Gaal’s defining masterstroke and inspired act of genius was in persuading veteran Frank Rijkaard to return to Amsterdam from AC Milan, where he had been the central figure in the greatest team of its generation, the last to win successive European Cup titles.

Van Gaal saw in Rijkaard the missing piece to his evolving Ajax team, a player equally adept at Centre-back or in Central Midfield. He would be capable of giving van Gaal the tactical versatility to compete against the elite of European club teams. He also saw in Rijkaard the perfect mentor to play alongside the Ajax youngsters both handed their debuts by van Gaal, Edgar Davids and Clarence Seedorf. With Rijkaard as van Gaal's fulcrum his teams could seamlessly transition between formations. Whilst van Gaal favoured a 3 man back line, Rijkaard could step into Centre-back alongside Danny Blind allowing for a 4-4-1-1, with Litmanen behind a number 9 (nominally from Ronald de Boer, Nwanku Kanu or Patrick Klliuvert).

The impact was immediate. Ajax won the Dutch League title in 1994, with the previously unheralded Litmanen crowned top goalscorer. But it was for their achievements during the 1994/95 campaign that van Gaal is best remembered, as Ajax retained the Dutch League title after having gone through the season unbeaten, and were crowned Champions of Europe for the first time in two decades.

Ajax’s 1995 Champions League triumph has seemingly been remembered in footballing folklore as the biggest upset of its type in recent history, yet nothing could be further from the truth. Ajax began the campaign drawn alongside defending champions Milan in the Group Stages, during which they comprehensively defeated the Italians 2-0 in both home and away ties.

LVG toasts the 1995/96 Dutch Eredivisie with his young team.

With van Gaal using the versatile Rijkaard deployed as the deep-lying central midfielder, he favoured a radical 3-1-2-3-1 formation. With Rijkaard playing in front of a three man backline of Danny Blind (CB) Frank De Boer (LB) and Michael Reiziger (RB), Van Gaal freed up Blind to play as a sweeper. As attacks broke down, or balls were played beyond the Milan front line, Rijkaard stepped in seamlessly, thus leaving Blind to carry the ball out of defence and launch attack after attack. Van Gaal compensated for the weakness of any 3 at the back setup (the lack of defensive width), by using their centre midfielders, (nominally Seedorf and Davids) to track the runs of opposing wide players - not the conventional wisdom of marauding wingbacks. The advantage of Van Gaal’s system at Ajax was that with the centre midfielder tracking wide runs, the blistering natural pace of his wingers, Marc Overmars and Finidi George were ever available outlets though which to launch attacks.

Their landmark performance came during the second leg Semi-final against a Bayern Munich side seen by many as the tournament’s favourites. After a goalless first leg in Munich, the Germans were simply swept aside, as a relentless Ajax dismantled them with a veracity not seen in Amsterdam for a generation. van Gaal’s midfield trio of Rijkaard, Seedorf and Davids dominated the game augmented by the blistering pace on both flanks by the marauding Finidi George and Marc Overmaars who both found the net in an era-defining 5-2 victory. In fact, the final itself was one of frustration for van Gaal and his young side, as Capello’s Milan sought to frustrate the dutch and wear them down in a battle of attrition. But with 20 minutes left in a game destined for extra time, van Gaal replaced Litmanen with the 19 year old Patrick Kliuvert, who had been handed his debut earlier in the season.

And so it was that with 5 minutes left,the young substitute found himself in possession on the edge of the Milan box, played a neat one-two and slotted home past the despairing Rossi, to complete the ultimate footballing fairy-tale. With an average age of just 23, Ajax had become the youngest side to ever lift the most revered club trophy on earth.

Immediately after the final, the first cracks emerged that would signpost the fate of van Gaal’s Ajax. The final was the last game 18 year-old Clarence Seedorf played for the club.  With the outcome of the soon-to-be Bosman Ruling in the offing, and with only a year left to run on his first professional contract, Ajax were not financially equipped to offer long-term multi million pounds deals to its raft of young stars.

Seedorf left for Sampdoria, followed by Rijkaard, who retired after the Champions League triumph, perhaps all too aware of the perfect symmetry it had brought to a career laden with silverware and individual accolades.

The 1995/96 season was still one of continued success for Ajax. The League title was retained for the third consecutive season, and in Europe van Gaal’s team continued to win admirers. In the group stages Ajax were applauded off the pitch at the Bernabeu as they beat a star studded Real Madrid team 2-0. But ultimately the season would end in disappointment.  A second successive Champions League Final ended in defeat for the Dutch.  After a 1-1 draw and extra time, they lost their trophy to a newly resurgent Juventus team on penalties.

Van Gaal’s legacy at Ajax is one mired in conflict. Despite overseeing one of the most successful periods in the clubs history he is still viewed by many as a shrewd pragmatist whose win-at-all-costs mentality was a betrayal of the principles of Ajax and Totaalvoetbal.

As van Gaal was lifting the Uefa Cup in his first season in charge, another Dutch coach was lifting the European Cup for the first time in Barcelona’s history. The heirs to Rinus Michels’ vision of Totaalvoetbal were reshaping modern football in Catalonia - not in Amsterdam.

This resentment runs deep, certainly, Ajax’s most beloved son Cruyff never forgave van Gaal for abandoning the sacred Ajax principles. Following his sacking from Bayern Munich in 2011, Ajax appointed van Gaal as Chief Executive. Cruyff, outraged,  launched a legal challenge and his appointment was overturned, such is the enmity by which van Gaal is still regarded by some elements of the Ajax support.

The greatest tragedy is the rapid decimation of van Gaal’s Ajax, although nurtured by one Dutchman, it was effectively destroyed by another, Marc Bosman. With such an inordinately young team, most of its first team stars were playing under their first professional contracts, which by the precarious nature of youth development in football, remain notoriously short ended. With the Dutch Eredivisie then as it is now, essentially a footballing backwater, with none of the same commercial pull of the English, Spanish, or Italian game, Ajax were simply unable to offer their young stars the same long term multi-million pound deals they found elsewhere on the continent - Ajax became the singular greatest victim of the Bosman Ruling.