The legendary goalkeeper spent 113,000,000 euros, lost the title, fell out of the Champions League spots and left In today’s football – no one can live of the past.
It was indeed the best era for Ajax fans in the 21st century. Dušan Tadić took Casemiro on a carousel, Ajax beat Real Madrid first, then Juventus, had Tottenham by the throat, but the Champions League final slipped away.
Back then, in 2019, everyone was writing about Ajax’s great comeback – about Matthijs de Ligt and Frankie de Jong, coach Erik ten Hag – and of course about the club directors and former club player legends Mark Overmars and Edwin van der Sar.
Four years later, the last part of that triumvirate left Amsterdam. Van der Sar resigned after a season in which Ajax only finished third in the Eredivisie table, thus missing out on the Champions League and more than 50,000,000 euros it had brought to the Amsterdaamers in each of the last few seasons.
“After almost 11 years in the club – I’m done. We experienced wonderful things together, but this was also an incredibly difficult period… I feel that now I need to move away a bit, to rest, to do other things.
It doesn’t seem right to me to make decisions about the future of this club now. That’s why I decided to leave,” Van der Sar wrote in his farewell message.
He recalled the old saying that there is no such thing as ‘yesterday’ in football. Overmars and Van der Sar were celebrated by the fans as brilliant minds of the new generation, they raised Ajax above the competition, even came close to the richest clubs in Europe… And then everything fell apart.
First, Overmars’ departure due to accusations of sexual harassment of female colleagues. The long-standing friendship broke up then because Overmars felt that Van der Sar had let him down too easily.
All this was difficult for the legendary goalkeeper. But he stayed in the club, took everything on his back. But the pressure took the most of him.Last summer, Van der Sar spent 113,000,000 euros on reinforcements – Steven Bergwijn, Calvin Bassey, Brian Brobbey, Owen Wijndal, Ahmetcan Kaplan, Geronimo Rulli… Everyone was convinced that the new title would be a walk in the park for the club from the country’s capital.
New champions Feyenoord and the runner-up PSV invested 44,000,000 in players – combined. Ajax finished only third in the table – the worst season in the last 14 years.
Van der Sar was left alone, everything was directed towards him. In the match against Utrecht, the last one at the Amsterdam Arena this season, most of the fans booed him.
The hashtag #sarout (Van der Sar out) spread across social networks. They accused him of everything. And also for the fact that due to the conflict from 2017, the return of Peter Bosz to the managerial position was stopped.
Van der Sar realized that he had nowhere to go. He understood that the arrival of the new director of sports affairs, Moritz Hendricks – a former field hockey player by the way – meant that he was about to receive a thank you note.
Everyone forgot his previous successes overnight – the lucrative sponsorship contract with the company Ziggo, all the wins in the Champions League, all the millions that poured into the club from the transfer of De Ligt, De Jong, Ziyech, Van de Beek, Antony, Lisandro Lopez…Yesterday doesn’t exist, and today Ajax are going through tough times.
Van der Sar will remain at the club until August 1st, to assist during the transfer window. But his role will be only advisory – decisions will be made by someone else.
