9 clear with 5 games left
©TM/IMAGO
After matchday 29 in the Eredivisie, Ajax looked destined to be crowned champions for the first time since 2022. Ajax are comfortably the most successful club in the history of Netherlands football but they’ve endured a horrific collapse across their last four games to effectively surrender the title. After Wout Weghorst completed a stunning comeback against Willem II on matchday 29, the Amsterdam club held a nine point advantage over PSV and required just six points from their final five fixtures but they’ve crumbled in unthinkable fashion.
Ajax have failed to win their last four fixtures but the devastating and pivotal blow arrived amid crazy circumstances on Wednesday night. With eight minutes of injury time played and Groningen down to ten men, Ajax were on the verge of a 2-1 win to preserve their one point lead over PSV at the top of the Eredivisie table. But Thijmen Blokziji netted an equaliser in the 99th minute as tempers boiled over as PSV supporters celebrated in disbelief in Eindhoven.
Eredivisie title race: The view from the Netherlands
PSV are firmly in the driving seat with a one-point lead over Ajax and they are expected to beat Sparta Rotterdam on the final day. Francesco Farioli’s men need to win against FC Twente to preserve any feint hope and no club in Europe’s top seven leagues have surrendered a nine point lead with just five games remaining since 1996. Kevin Lux, Transfermarkt’s Eredivisie expert, admits shock has reverberated around the Netherlands after Ajax collapse but he believes the current squad is the ‘worst in history’.
“PSV was the only team with a clear shot at the title, after dominating last year and keeping the core of their team intact for this season,” said Lux. “Feyenoord was expected to be good after some time to rebuild, but Ajax was believed to have another building season after their dramatic last place last year, with no real additions to an already weak squad. Farioli did an amazing job in getting points with probably the worst Ajax group I have seen in my lifetime, and I have seen some bad players like Froilan Ledezma, Amin Younes and Edgar Manucharyan.”
On Ajax surrendering the league, Lux continued: “So I’m not surprised that they finally lost some points at the end of the season, because it was never great what they showed. The weak Eredivisie masked their weak performances. PSV should have won this title easily, but they greatly underperformed as well. The only steady performer in the Eredivisie, this season, was FC Utrecht, but they were never good enough to mount a serious title challenge. If they ever had a chance of winning the title, it would have been this season, though, after all the top teams underperformed.”
