In season 1966-1967 Ajax Amsterdam won both the league and the cup for the first time. In the second leg at the , Ajax won 1—2. The Amsterdam Arena now Johan Cruyff Arena played host to the event since its return until the last edition was played in 2009. Archived from on 13 March 2012. The success in reaching the acknowledgment from football society might not happen if there was no Jack Reynolds, an Englishman who was hired at that time to be the coach of the club. The Klassieker is the most famous of all the rivalries in the Netherlands and the matches are always sold out.
The team is composed mostly of professional footballers, who are often recent graduates from the highest youth level Ajax A1 serving their first professional contract as a reserve, or players who are otherwise unable to play in the first team. After Cruyff's sale to rivals in 1983, Van Basten became Ajax's key player, top scoring in the Eredivisie for four seasons between and. After the sale of Bergkamp to in 1993, Van Gaal re-signed the experienced Frank Rijkaard to complement his young Ajax team featuring academy graduates and , , , , and , as well as mercurial foreign talents , and , and veteran captain. Position Player 1 on loan from 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 15 17 18 No. Below is a list of all players to wear the number 14 shirt since Johan Cruyff's departure. The club achieved promotion to the highest level of Dutch football in 1911 and had its first major success in 1917, winning the , the Netherlands' national cup. Ajax opted for white shorts and white shirt with a broad, vertical red stripe over chest and back, which still is Ajax's outfit.
Ajax plays at the , which opened as the Amsterdam ArenA in 1996 and was renamed in 2018. Past participants have included , , , , , , , , , and. Both teams have fanatic supporters, and clashes off the pitch are more often the rule than the exception. Archived from on 11 March 2012. In , Ajax won a fourth Dutch league championship and second league and cup double in five seasons, winning 27 out of 34 league matches and scoring 100 goals.
In , Ajax won its first domestic championship in four seasons and recorded a double of the and two years later. Ajax is the most successful team of the tournament, having won it a record ten times, while from were the last team to win the tournament, in 2009. According to the , Ajax were the seventh-most successful European club of the 20th century and The World's Club Team of the Year in 1992. In 1973, Michels' Barcelona broke the to bring Cruyff to. Archived from on 2 December 2013. As with most league competitions, three points were awarded for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss. Archived from on 16 January 2014.
The tournament was hosted annually each summer by Ajax until 1992, when the last edition of the original tournament was played. During the 2008—09 season, ground staff introduced an artificial lighting system that has finally reduced this problem considerably. Main article: Ajax was founded in Amsterdam on 18 March 1900. The club is registered as a N. Archived from on 14 July 2014. Archived from on 13 January 2007.
The Arena has a retractable roof and set a trend for other modern stadiums built in Europe in the following years. Special kits for away fixtures did not exist at the time and according to football association regulations the newcomers had to change their colours if two teams in the same league had identical uniforms. In 2010, Frank de Boer was appointed manager of Ajax and led the club to its first league title in seven years, and record 30th title overall, in the. Four teams participated in the competition, played in a league format since 1986. Ajax are the most successful club of the tournament, having won the trophy a total of five times.
Archived from on 14 July 2014. Historically, Ajax named after the has been the most successful club in the , with 34 and 19. Archived from on 30 May 2012. The group was originally situated on the North-West side of the stadium in row 410, from where it derives its name, until relocating to their current place in the stands in 2008. They lost to with a lineup that was the youngest ever in a European final, averaging an age of 22 years and 282 days.
Over the years, clubs such as , , and have had their senior youth teams participate in the tournament. Criticism was brought forth that the legal grid for a naamloze vennootschap would not be suitable for a Football club, and that the sports related ambitions would suffer from the new commercial interests of the now listed Ajax. The original competition was held at De Meer Stadion, Ajax's home between 1934 and 1996. For the women's team, see. After losing 1-2 in the first leg, they defeated Real Madrid 4—1 in the away match, stunning the defending champions in their own stadium, with aggregate score 5—3. This Jewish imagery eventually became a central part of Ajax fans' culture. The , Ajax became for the first time.