Super Wingstorm

"What did you say?"

After the afternoon training session ended, the surprised voice of head coach Ronald Koeman echoed from the first team’s head coach’s office.

At that moment, the core leadership of Ajax’s technical department was gathered in the office.

Leading them was Technical Director Van Gaal, along with two youth development assistants, Luther Carroll and Patrick Radru, and Chief Scout Tony Bruins Slotts. They were all assembled in Ronald Koeman’s office.

"You promised Talabesi that if he renews his contract, you’ll let him leave in six months?"

Van Gaal nodded affirmatively. "That’s right. This clause will be written into the new contract."

"I don’t understand," Ronald Koeman said, shaking his head.

"No, you understand. You just don’t want to admit it," Van Gaal said with certainty.

Everyone fell silent.

"The landscape of European football today is nothing like it used to be, and Ajax isn’t the Ajax of old. But so many of us are still drowning in the glory and splendor of the past, unable to pull ourselves out. How many wrong decisions have we made because of this? How much profit have we lost that we shouldn’t have?"

They were all left speechless.

And how true it was.

"It’s not just Talabesi. Ibrahimovic, Van der Vaart, Escude... any player at this club who wants to leave, we can let him go, as long as we receive a suitable offer."

Van Gaal spoke with great conviction, but his words sent a huge shockwave through everyone present.

This meant that Ajax was about to undergo a massive transformation from top to bottom. Even the entire management structure of the club would have to change, affecting every single person currently at the club.

From now on, Ajax would fully adopt a business model of developing players for the Four Major Leagues. Within this club, there would no longer be any such thing as an "unsellable" player, no matter who it was.

Ronald Koeman, surprised and finding it hard to accept, said, "Louis, if you do this, where will the team’s cohesion come from? How can the team guarantee its competitiveness in the Eredivisie and the Champions League?"

"It’s simple. We sell one, we bring one in. South America, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Africa, even Asia—they’re all full of talented young players with great potential. Isn’t developing young players what we at Ajax do best?"

"We buy them cheap, develop them for a while, and sell them for a high price, profiting from the difference. And the players, naturally, want to use Ajax as a platform to improve themselves and as a stepping stone to the Four Major Leagues, just like Escude. So we don’t need to worry about the team’s competitiveness at all."

Van Gaal’s speech was a massive blow to Ajax’s past operational philosophy, leaving everyone present in shock.

Ajax used to sell players before, but often only when they were forced to.

Take Talabesi, for example. A shrewd club would have sold him quickly during the summer, grabbing a huge transfer fee from one of the giants of the Four Major Leagues, and then brought in a promising young player to develop. That would have avoided the predicament the team is currently facing.

But Ajax didn’t do that. Instead, they were bent on keeping Talabesi. And what happened? Not long after the season started, Talabesi began demanding a transfer. With only six months left on his contract, the team was in a very disadvantageous position.

One could even imagine that without the two-year automatic renewal clause from his original contract, Ajax would have taken a huge loss on Talabesi’s transfer. They would have had to either sell him for a rock-bottom price in the winter window or wait until summer and let him leave on a free transfer. Either way, Ajax would have suffered a massive loss.

What happened with Talabesi could happen with Van der Vaart, Ibrahimovic, Sneijder, and the others.

Only by changing the club’s business model could Ajax prevent such incidents from happening again and again.

But it had to be said, Van Gaal’s line of thinking was too radical.

"I believe Talabesi will give us an answer within a few days. After that, I’ll talk to Van der Vaart and Ibrahimovic. I hope to stabilize the team and bring the players back together as soon as possible before we head out for the final match against Bruges."

First stabilize the home front, then deal with external threats. As a coach, Van Gaal was a firm believer in this management philosophy.

"I’ve already made a pledge to Michael. If we fail to advance from the Champions League group stage this season, I will resign and take the blame."

Everyone present was completely shocked to hear this, because they all knew exactly what it meant.

Without a doubt, Van Gaal was a world-class manager, but ever since leading Ajax to glory in the 1990s, he hadn’t had any notable achievements to his name. His two stints at Barcelona ended without success, and his time coaching the Dutch National Team was even worse—they failed to even qualify for the World Cup. All of this had long made Van Gaal a controversial figure.

Anyone familiar with European football knew that it was unfair to place all the blame on Van Gaal for what happened at Barcelona or with the Netherlands. But the fans and the media didn’t care about that; they only cared about hype and criticism.

If Van Gaal were to now leave the position of Ajax’s Technical Director in disgrace, his coaching career would likely be finished. He might even fall from the ranks of Europe’s top-tier managers, and it would be very difficult for any major club to hire him in the future.

It could be said that with this move, Van Gaal was gambling his entire professional career.

Putting others aside, even Ronald Koeman, who had never seen eye-to-eye with Van Gaal, couldn’t help but be moved at this moment.

This was no longer just a matter of professional ethics; more importantly, it was about Van Gaal’s emotional attachment to Ajax.

And Koeman also understood that with Van Gaal taking the fall, his own position as head coach would be secure.

Thinking of this, he felt a bit conflicted.

But just then, Van Gaal suddenly turned to look at Ronald Koeman.

"Ronald, for the match against Bruges, there’s one thing I need you to promise me."

...

...

Over the next two days, Ajax continued to prepare for the fourteenth round of the Eredivisie in an atmosphere of calm.

Ronald Koeman announced the eighteen-man squad a day early. Vermaelen was on the list, but Yang Yang, who had just been called up from the second team, failed to make the cut, which left him somewhat disappointed.

On match day, Ronald Koeman did not include Vermaelen in the starting lineup. He stuck with the pairing of Heitinga and Escude. The right-back was still John O’Brien, while Maxwell was rotated out on the left, replaced by the Czech defender Zdenek Grygera.

The twenty-three-year-old Czech international, though a right-footed player who had just joined the team in the summer, had been kept on the bench by Talabesi. Adding to that, Grygera was something of a utility player, capable of playing in the center and on the left, so his position was always shifting. As a result, he rarely got to play in his original, preferred right-back position.

The changes in the backline also affected the team’s stability on the pitch. Just fifteen minutes into the game, the home team, Roda JC, took a one-nil lead after a brilliant assist from their forward, Kone.

Afterward, Ajax’s attack was relentless but fruitless. The forward trident of Scola, Sunk, and Soetters consistently failed to break through Roda JC’s defense. To make matters worse, Grygera was injured in the forty-third minute and had to be substituted, forcing Koeman to bring on De Jong.

After changing sides for the second half and following Koeman’s halftime adjustments, Ajax launched an aggressive offensive. Van der Vaart used his individual skill to assist a goal by Scola in the forty-ninth minute. Then, in the sixty-second minute, Soetters scored to put them ahead. In the end, Ajax narrowly secured a two-one comeback victory against Roda JC.

The nail-biting match allowed Ajax to hold onto its position as the league leader. They were four points ahead of second-place Eindhoven and a full ten points ahead of third-place Feyenoord, giving them a favorable advantage in the race for the league title.

However, on the Eredivisie’s top scorer chart, Kezman was at the top with fifteen goals in fourteen rounds. Ajax’s top scorer, Ibrahimovic, had only scored eight goals, tying for second place on the list.

The media and fans outside the club didn’t pay much attention to Ajax’s narrow victory over Roda JC. Everyone’s focus was on the final round of the Champions League group stage: the crucial away match against Belgium Bruges.

This match would determine whether Ajax could advance to the Champions League knockout stage. It would also decide the fate of Ajax’s Technical Director, Van Gaal—though the latter fact was not publicly known.

The good news was that the day after the Roda JC match, Ajax officially announced that they had renewed the contract of their main right-back, Talabesi. Both parties agreed to fulfill the previous contract and extend it for two years.

For Talabesi, who had been bogged down in a transfer quagmire for the past few months, this was undoubtedly a relief. At the signing ceremony, facing the media, he stated emotionally that his injury had mostly recovered and he hoped to return to the pitch as soon as possible.

Head coach Ronald Koeman also publicly stated that Talabesi’s physical condition was recovering ideally, and the team doctors had given him the green light to play. He would be available for the Midweek match against Belgium Bruges. Koeman also added that Talabesi’s return would boost the team’s combat effectiveness in the away game.

At this critical moment, the return of a key player greatly boosted morale throughout Ajax.

Especially since, over the past period, Technical Director Van Gaal had spoken with key players like Van der Vaart and Ibrahimovic. Everyone had basically reached a consensus: at this do-or-die moment for the team, everything else had to be put aside. First, they had to defeat Bruges away from home, and then they could talk about other things.

Van Gaal also promised on behalf of the club that next summer, as long as an interested team made a suitable offer, Ajax would seriously consider the transfer of any player, no matter who it was.

This declaration also gave the players a huge morale boost. Every one of them began to realize that they needed to perform even better to secure a brighter future for themselves.

The team’s internal conflicts were eased. Everyone reached an agreement and turned their guns outward. The dark cloud that had been hanging over De Toekomst gradually dissipated, and everyone secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

But on the day before leaving for Belgium, Ronald Koeman announced the eighteen-man squad for the away match, as was customary.

To everyone’s surprise, Yang Yang, who had been called up from the second team less than a week ago, was on the list.