Uncertainty Surrounds Ajax’s Head Coach Position: Potential Candidates and Speculations

There is still a lot of uncertainty about the role of head coach at Ajax. Erik ten Hag’s name can almost certainly be dismissed and no agreement has yet been reached with Graham Potter. Francisco Farioli’s name is also associated with the current number five in the Eredivisie. Frans Thomése puts Roger Schmidt forward in the Hard Gras Podcast. The German, who worked at PSV in the past, seems to be in his last weeks as head coach of Benfica.

The role of head coach at Ajax is keeping people busy. According to The Telegraph Ten Hag was Alex Kroes’ dream candidate and the now technical director was willing to wait a few more weeks for him, but the former successful Ajax coach also seems to be ‘normal’ for the group at Manchester United next season. Potter, on the other hand, is still seriously in the picture, although Ajax and the Englishman have not been able to reach an agreement so far. Thomas Heerma is in favor of the arrival of Potter, but Thomése wonders to what extent the former coach of Brighton & Hove Albion and Chelsea, among others, is feasible.

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“If you read what his conditions are, it will never work,” says the writer in the latest episode of the Hard Gras Podcast. “He wants a certain salary, which is more like Premier League salaries, and he actually wants to have the final say in transfers. Of course, Ajax has already had that with Mislintat, so of course they will never do that again. What I read is that he really wants to go to Ajax, but that seems logical to me because that is well on his list and he can of course only do better. But Henk (Spaan, ed.) has sometimes said that those people never settle for a lower salary, because then they will be laughed at at the next club.”

Spaan responds affirmatively and then explains why he thinks that Ajax and Potter will not reach an agreement regarding finances. “The salary is a status symbol. You also have to go to another club afterwards. If you now settle for half of your previous salary, then it will be difficult to negotiate with the next employer,” says Spaan. In any case, Thomas Heerma van Voss is happy that Ajax seems to be in favor of a foreign coach. “In any case, I am very much in favor of a foreign trainer, also due to the lack of good Dutch options at the moment. And I’m glad that it won’t be Pascal Jansen.” After his dismissal from AZ, Jansen was spotted a number of times in the Johan Cruijff ArenA during an Ajax match, but said on Sunday morning in Good Morning Eredivisie on ESPN that there is no question of a possible employment contract in Amsterdam.

Schmidt

Another former Eredivisie coach whose name has not yet been linked to Ajax, but who may be without a club after this season, is Schmidt. The German switched from PSV to Benfica in the summer of 2022. He immediately guided the Portuguese superpower to the national title and the quarter-finals of the Champions League in his first season, but the performance in the current year has been disappointing. “A name that I have not yet come across, but which would of course also be possible for Ajax, is Roger Schmidt,” says Thomése, surprisingly. “It seems fun to me. An Ajax coach like Bosz at PSV and a PSV coach at Ajax, both looking for revenge.”

Schmidt joined PSV in the summer of 2020. As head coach of the Eindhoven team, he won the Johan Cruijff Scale once and the KNVB Cup once. He previously worked at RB Salzburg and Bayer Leverkusen, among others. As coach of RB Salzburg, Schmidt faced Ajax in the Europa League in 2014. The Ajax of then coach Frank de Boer was twice played in a pile by the Austrians and was therefore painfully knocked out of the European tournament.

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#Sounds #fun #revenge