City will never get to the semi-final or final of the Champions League – nor will we ever compete in the Champions League for that matter – but how many of a yellow and green persuasion have followed Ajax’s exploits in the knockout stages of this year’s competition and thought, ‘yep, this looks familiar’?
An idiot even tweeted about it:
Ajax’s variation of Farkeball is pretty good. Not quite as sophisticated as the original, but still good
— Gary Gowers (@Gary_Gowers) April 16, 2019
I’m not suggesting for one second we’re going to go to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium next season and teach Spurs a footballing lesson, nor will we likely be teaching any of the top six any lessons, but on a smaller scale, we are Ajax.
While they have had more than their share of wilderness years on the European stage, those of us of a certain age can just about recall their 1970s heyday when Johan Cruyff and co strutted their way around Europe – for club and country – taking on all before them with their “total football”.
All of which makes their seemingly unstoppable surge to the Champions League final resonate just that little bit more, especially when they are doing it in a manner similar to that which we now recognise as the ‘Norwich way’.
We quite rightly rave about Max Aarons, Jamal Lewis, Ben Godfrey and Emi Buendia, while Ajax fans have Frenkie de Jong, Donny van de Beek and Matthijs de Ligt to get excited over – even if all three are almost certain to depart Amsterdam in the summer.
Each team has a sprinkling of experienced heads who act as the glue that holds it all together, and both rely on their players being accomplished technicians who are comfortable with the ball at their feet.
The similarities don’t end there, but for the Dutch, it’s a style that has been honed for decades. For City, it’s one that’s been just two seasons in the making, which in many ways makes it all the more remarkable.
And we’re right to be excited about this brave new world and the direction in which the board and Stuart Webber have taken us. Let’s just hope that, like Ajax, we’ll still be treading this same path in the years and decades to come..
There will, of course, be ups and downs along the way and the cyclical nature of supporting a provincial club will naturally provide enough difficult times to help us appreciate and embrace the good ones – like this season – but I’d love to think that even when Stuart departs for his dream job, the values and culture will remain.
We’ve talked about the ‘Norwich way’ on numerous occasions in the past without ever really knowing what it is, or was, but now we do. And this needs to be embedded for generations to come, in the same way the Ajax philosophy – with its origins in the late 1960s and first seen under Rinus Michels – still shines brightly to this very day.
The Amsterdam club unashamedly cite the old values and traditions of their club, ie – developing their own without lavish spending, selling and then re-investing and renewing. While it was Michels who started the ball rolling, it was best summed up best by Cruyff who, in his time as head coach there, said: “Why couldn’t you beat a richer club? I’ve never seen a bag of money score a goal.”
And there it is, in a nutshell. In a single line, Cruyff has wrapped up the thrust of the self-financing model.
Obviously, it takes more than a snappy one-liner to beat a “richer club” – excellent coaching and recruitment are but two more vital ingredients – but the model begins and ends with the belief that deep pockets are not the be-all and end-all of a successful football club.
Ajax is a bigger club than Norwich City, of course, and to embed a culture from top to bottom is a bigger task the bigger the organisation, but the principle of doing it within your means, by developing your own, to buy low and sell high and to be innovative is a golden thread that now runs through both clubs.
So too the style of football, and how the patient, fluid, possession-based game is introduced to the youngest age groups in the respective academies and filtered out across all age groups and senior teams – the most striking similarity of all.
It’s worth saying again, there is a clear difference between Ajax doing it in Europe’s elite club competition and City doing it in the English second tier, but the similarities in the way the ball is worked through the thirds, the zip, the verve, the fearlessness and the inventiveness in the final third is there for all to see.
That Ajax and Tottenham – who for very different reasons have had a City-style transfer budget over the last two transfer windows – made it to one of the Champions League semi-finals was a result in itself, and was one in the eye for the Man Citys and PSGs whose successes are the very antithesis of self-funded.
All of which makes next season that little bit more mouthwatering. While the prospect of City going toe-to-toe with the top six is somewhat daunting, even the tiniest prospect of seeing one or two being taken down along the way by virtue of some Farkeball more than compensates.
Premier League campaigns of years gone by have been notable for their lack of successful recruitment but we already know this one will be different. Webber and co have earned our trust and, while the media will link City with dozens of names in the coming weeks, it will be a very different summer from previous pre-Prem affairs.
The few names that arrive are unlikely to be familiar but will have been carefully chosen and will, at least on paper, be a perfect fit for Farkeball. And before the summer is over, they will be engrained in the ‘Norwich way’.
So, let’s sit tight, admire the Ajax way, win the league and then trust Stuart and Daniel to bring in the odd unpolished diamond who, after being ‘Colneyed’, will be a fine fit for some total football Norwich-City-style.
While you’re here, you’ll probably have noticed that in order to *hopefully* safeguard the future of MyFootballWriter, we’ve started a fund-raising drive using the Patreon membership model. If you think you could help, or if you’re at least intrigued as to what it’s all about, please have a look here.
We’ve made a steady start but there’s still some way to go before we can look forward to, hopefully, reporting on City as they mix it with the elite of the English game. We’d really appreciate your help people.
Many thanks
I’ve loved what Ajax have done and can see the exciting similarities with City. Another example closer to home would be Leicester. I know their owners have deep pockets but their promotion and subsequent success was built on the back of brilliant recruitment-Mahrez, Kante, Albrighton, Vardy and others were all players who had little profile but have been hugely successful.
I’m not expecting us to win the league and have a run to CL quarter finals, but there is hope that NCFC can establish themselves once again as a top flight side-that would be enough for the next few seasons.
Agree with every word of this article. The Webber approach clearly aims to instil a coherent football philosophy across the entire football operation. At its heart, it’s about making the most intelligent decision you can at every stage and ensuring you have a clear playing style which you stick to irrespective of form, managers, coaches, fans’ opinion, press, and the overall and sometimes deafening background noise etc. Norwich now have a clearly prescribed philosophy for running the club going forward and if we stick to this we’ll be ok whatever division we are in.
Ajax have flown the flag for the smaller clubs for decades now. Admittedly, as ‘smaller’ clubs go, they’re one of the biggest but their defiant way of playing football and the manner which they have tried to stick to an adventurous and easy on the eye style in spite of the over cautious dogma (see Chelsea amongst others) that has seeped into the game of late is beyond admirable. I hope they go on and win the CL and they’ll have a chance against Barcelona if that is, as looks likely, going to be the final. Yes, the heart and soul will be ripped out of their team in the summer and they may have a quiet season or two as they rebuild, again, but they’ll be back. If ever there was a model club to look up to, and we’ve been quoted a few, its Ajax. Great piece Gary.
Couldn’t agree more Ed.
Great comment and a great article.
Spot on Gary. I think the single most interesting prospect for next season is how the self-funding model applies to the moneybags Premier League. It may just bring some business sense back to elite English football, especially with the accursed Brexit already giving the Big Football the jitters. Allied to youth development/astute scouting and Farkeball, it makes for genuine excitement at what’s to come for Norwich. Vrancic’s goal v Blackburn, which I can’t stop watching, sums it up for me.
While I’m here let me give you an update on Dulwich Hamlet, my new ‘local’ club. They finished a very creditable 14th in the National League South, with a fair few wobbles along the way of what was to be honest a bit of a grind of a season. At this level, professional nous starts to come into it, and Dulwich lost a lot of games to teams who scored early then closed down the game. But towards the end of the season there were signs of Dulwich learning how to break through parked buses, but also learning how to park a great big one of their own.
Off the pitch things are getting really interesting. The owners/developers and local council are nearing agreement on ground redevelopment, and the prospects of a new stadium in a couple of years are very good. It’ll have a capacity of 5000, enormous (and luxurious!) by non-league standards but necessary to accommodate a now-regular crowd of 3000 and growing. The attendances make the club the only (repeat only…) profitable club in the league, so Dulwich like Norwich are on the self-financing path. And no, I have no idea where the other clubs get their money from either – dodgy local businessmen/wannabe local heroes I suspect. Dulwich very much on the up – in the EFL within five years I should expect.
Cheers for the kind words Andy… and for the update on Dulwich Hamlet’s fortunes.
Events off the pitch sound particularly exciting and for a non-league to be looking at the prospect of moving into a brand new 5000 capacity but surely be unique. How long before the Hamlet are going toe-to-toe with an East Anglian side that plays in blue and white and isn’t Lowestoft 😉
Oh we’re aiming much higher than that Gary! And incidentally lowestoft seem to have stabilised so them v. Ipswich may be more likely scenario!
Great read as usual Gary.
Spurs started off in the 50’s in the old second div and played the original pass and run game that eventually got them promoted and to doing the first double in 61/62 season and formed Alf Ramsey’s style of wingless wonders thst won Ipswich the title and England a world cup.
As with any system that a club selects to use from top to bottom it needs as others have said a trust from the supporters and the boardroom.
Yes there will be days that one or other will cry wolf about it not working and want to revert to other trusted systems and the hardest part will be finding the right coaches and management that wants to carry it on no matter what.
Eventually city will have new owners and a board that might want to put their own mark on the club and someone will replace Webber again he will want to leave his own mark so in the years to come as in the years gone by city will face many trials and tribulations but what will always be there is the love the supporters show this great club and to its players.
Onwards and Upwards
OTBC
Thanks Gary, another insightful article.
Maybe the powers that be could organise a pre-season between us & Ajax? Could be a mouth-watering prospect.