Johan Cruyff's Legend Lives on in Ajax's Bright Young Future

There is something deeply, undeniably satisfying about the prospect of Ajax being back on the big stage, competing in a European showpiece 21 years on from their last.

Those red and white shirts, and the youth, vigour and sheer abandon of the football played by those wearing them in recent months—certainly on the continental stage—has ignited thoughts and hopes of a glorious new dynasty in Amsterdam to add to those that went before.

We are jumping the gun, of course. This is the Europa League, even if the Stockholm final against Manchester United does have a flavour of the Champions League—or, indeed, the pre-1992/93 European Cup—about it.

The swagger of some of those performances at the Amsterdam Arena especially on the way here, however—dazzling as they may have been—have to be set against the flirtations with collapse in the returns with FC Schalke 04 and Lyon in quarter- and semi-finals, respectively, and a failure to win back the Eredivisie title.

This Ajax side is not the finished article, and why would it be? The XI that took the field for the final match of the Eredivisie campaign on May 14—an ultimately in-vain 3-1 win at Willem II—had an average age of 20 years and 139 days, with 24-year-old midfielder Davy Klaassen the only over-21.

In the context of the modern game it's remarkable, even bearing in mind that coach Peter Bosz made a few freshening tweaks to the team that just about held on in that frantic second leg at Lyon.

Bosz clearly believes that Kasper Dolberg, the scorer of 23 goals in all competitions this season at the age of just 19, and 20-year-old Davinson Sanchez can deal with the demand for consistency and adaptability. They and their peers have rarely let their coach down.

Yet, even as a new generation begins to bloom and flourish, the past is never far away at Ajax, particularly given the recent announcement that the stadium is set to be named the Johan Cruyff Arena, in honour of the greatest figure in the club's history.

Just over a year after Cruyff's death, it is pertinent not only that his vision of what the club should be is bearing fruit, but that the way back into mainstream view is being led by an avowed disciple of his in Bosz.

This current scenario has its roots in the so-called "Velvet Revolution" of 2011. Cruyff had moved from critic, who told De Telegraaf in September 2010 (as recalled by Elko Born in The Blizzard) that "this isn't Ajax any more," through advisor to revolutionary spearhead.

At the end of March 2011, Ajax's entire advisory board resigned in protest at Cruyff's attempt to push through sweeping changes in the running of the club, with chief executive Rik van den Boog leaving soon afterwards.

This period, in which Cruyff laid down aims to have Ajax run in a style he felt was closer to the club's tradition, with sons of the soil like Dennis Bergkamp and Marc Overmars running the show and the focus to be returned to developing youth, rather than frittering cash on expensive signings, was a pivotal one. In many ways, it laid the groundwork for what is capturing the world's imagination today.

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Netherlands-based football journalist Derek Brookman told Bleacher Report: "From one perspective, it's enormously important. It's what he wanted—a team full of young players, largely produced by the club's academy, playing the sort of football he always espoused."

Frank de Boer, who had inherited a sporting mess from Martin Jol when he became coach in December 2010, told this writer in a May 2011 interview for the Independent that a big part of his role had been "to protect the players" from the circus upstairs.

The power struggle carried on until the following year, with Cruyff's philosophical nemesis, Louis van Gaal, appointed as the club's general director in November, an appointment ruled as illegitimate in February 2012, as Born noted.

When de Boer arrived, Cruyff had one of his men at the helm. From the start, he shook things up; he reinstalled the 4-3-3 system and lent on youth.

Despite de Boer's extraordinary success, becoming the first Ajax coach to win four successive league titles, Brookman believes his spell in charge was only some of the way towards what Cruyff eventually envisioned. "De Boer was a fan of Cruyff's ideals," he said, "but he didn't manage to implement quite the same sort of system."

Bosz, on the other hand, has, with the football that has thrilled Europe on the way to the Friends Arena this week evidence of that. "He is a huge fan of Cruyff," Brookman continued, pointing to the time they spent together in Israel when the now-Ajax coach was in charge at Maccabi Tel Aviv, where Johan's son, Jordi, is sporting director.

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Everything now is approaching perfect confluence, as Cruyff imagined. Bosz may be in many ways the ideal guardian for the talent, but it is about the conditions that were already set up to provide him with the talent, rather than being about an individual coaching mastermind.

"It's about longer-term thinking," Brookman said. "Players like Donny van de Beek and Matthijs de Ligt have been promoted by Bosz, and they've been schooled over the last four to five years.

"It's not just about what they do on the pitch. They are incredibly calm and focused off the pitch, when you see them interviewed. At 17, De Ligt analyses his own game in detail, which is incredible. It's not just the football, it's how you live your life and how you deal with pressure."

Now, the sense is that this talent has room to breathe, which wasn't always the case pre-2011.

"There was constant bickering," Brookman said. "To an extent, that's part of the club. Former players always had their tuppence worth on what was wrong. Cruyff thought, 'we need to change that. We need to get old players on board who people respect, and to be all pulling in the same direction'."

There is now, says Brookman, "a greater sense of peace" at the club, even if a certain sort of mania will always envelop the club to an extent.

That could reach fever pitch were Ajax to triumph against Manchester United on Wednesday, and it is tough believing that talents like Dolberg, van de Beek and even 17-year-old Justin Kluivert will be together for long enough to truly match the great sides of the past.

"If they perform the way they can in Stockholm," Brookman said, "it's possible that half the team could go." 

Yet, the next crop is ready to go. Brookman added: "If Klaasen goes, for example, Abdelhak Nouri (a consistent scorer with Jong Ajax this season) is ready to step in."

Whatever the future, and the final, may have in store, there is plenty here for the Amsterdammers to be proud of.

While the stadium renaming is a welcome gesture, it is in the daily workings of Ajax—and the return to their roots—where the greatest tribute to Johan Cruyff continues to be paid.