Why Ajax falls back on names from its successful past in times of crisis

It's crisis time again at Ajax, and in the hope of better times ahead, it's no coincidence that the names associated with past successes are being mentioned. The 2018/2019 season remains a benchmark.

Erik ten Hag was a candidate to succeed the sacked coach John Heitinga, and Marc Overmars was set to return as Alex Kroes' successor. A desperate attempt to revive the old days? Pure nostalgia?

‘This is more of a longing for the past,’ says Ad Vingerhoets, professor emeritus of emotions and well-being at Tilburg University. ‘Because everything was better back then, or sentiments of that kind. Those kinds of feelings are more related to conservatism, not being open to change and innovation.’

‘This is about dealing with a stressful situation – for the avid supporter – in which people are desperately searching for a solution,’ the professor continues. ‘It is not illogical to involve the past in this, but that offers no guarantee for the future.’

Overmars and Ten Hag themselves seem unaffected by the sentiment for the time being. Overmars announced that he had been approached again to return to Amsterdam, but that he had rejected the request.

‘It's over for me,’ he said in De Telegraaf. ‘I have a soft spot for Ajax and Amsterdam, but for me it's a closed chapter.’

Overmars' spokesperson told the NOS that he wanted to leave it at that. Overmars intends to serve out his contract as technical director of Antwerp, which still has a year and a half to run.

Ten Hag is also not eager to return at this point. Due to all the uncertainties in Amsterdam, the 55-year-old from Twente has decided to decline the honour for the time being.

The era of Overmars and Ten Hag at Ajax reached its peak in 2019, when Ajax reached the semi-finals of the Champions League with some beautiful football.

It was a team with home grown youth, young talent, supplemented by smart and valuable acquisitions such as Dusan Tadic, Daley Blind and Hakim Ziyech. Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt were also part of the team.

The impressive victories against Real Madrid and Juventus were the absolute highlights of a memorable season. Was everything better back then? None of the current Ajax players would likely have a place in the starting line-up of that team.

The names of the players from back then, such as Blind, Tadic, Ziyech and Donny van de Beek and Nicolás Tagliafico, among others, were and still are sung around the Johan Cruijff Arena. During the last transfer window, for example. They didn't come, except for Kasper Dolberg.

‘In itself, it's not strange for people to fall back on the past, because you can often learn from it and try to avoid certain things or optimise something,’ says Vingerhoets. ‘But that works much better on an individual level than on a group level, because then you also have to deal with complex group dynamics.’

The rose-tinted glasses through which people look back also obscure certain things. Overmars was dismissed for good reason due to inappropriate behaviour. Victims from that time are still employed at Ajax today.

Hakim Ziyech's name fell, he eventually went to Morocco

And Ten Hag failed to repeat his Ajax successes at Manchester United and Bayer Leverkusen, where he was sacked after just two league games.

‘Nostalgia is about longing for the positive aspects of the past,’ says Anouk Smeekes, senior lecturer in Interdisciplinary Social Science at Utrecht University. ‘Nostalgia is about looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses; the beautiful things are picked out, people long for them, and the less beautiful aspects are swept under the carpet.’

‘When someone speaks nostalgically about the past of a country or football club, it is always good to ask yourself whether this is the whole picture,’ Smeekes continues. ‘Are the positive things being overemphasised? Weren't there also things in the past that did not go so well?’

To ask the question is to answer it. But in times of crisis, nuance is the first thing to disappear.