When Tottenham and Ajax kick off in the Champions League on Tuesday, Spurs will be playing in their first semi-final in the competition. Ajax have won the European Cup or Champions League four times. But statistically speaking, Ajax are the great success story of this stage of the tournament. The numbers are stacked against them in almost every way.
On paper, Ajax simply don’t have the same quality as their opponents – or that of Barcelona or Liverpool. Based on their Elo ranking – which calculates a team’s quality based on number of victories, margin of victory, quality of opponent and home or away advantage – Ajax are by far the weakest team of the four semi-finalists (Barcelona and Liverpool play in the other tie).
Much has been made of Ajax’s youth, especially 19-year-old captain Matthijs de Ligt and star central midfielder Frenkie de Jong, who’ll join Barcelona in the summer for €75m. More than half of Ajax’s players are younger than 24.
Four players in Ajax’s squad – Daley Blind, Joël Veltman, Lasse Schöne and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar – have played in the tournament’s main draw before. The other squads have plenty of experience: Barcelona won the tournament in 2015 and have made it to three quarter-finals since; Liverpool made it to the final last season; and Tottenham are playing in their third consecutive Champions League.
What makes Ajax’s run to the final even more improbable is the financial disparity between themselves and the other three teams. Based on the Deloitte Football Money League report, Ajax don’t even register inside the top 30 richest clubs in terms of revenue. Whereas Barcelona, Liverpool and Tottenham all rank inside the top 10. When it comes to total squad value, the Dutch side are similarly out of place.
Ajax have got this far chiefly because of their form away from home, after they destroyed three-time reigning Champions League holders Real Madrid 4-1 at the Bernabéu in the last 16 and then beat Juventus 2-1 in Turin. Ajax are the only remaining team to have a better record on the road than at home, and unlike their two previous rounds, they play at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the first leg, which could make or break their Cinderella run in Europe this season.