Boxing the Wings: the Key to Ajax's Ordered Fluidity
Erik ten Hag is injecting excitement into a tactical theory that frequently produces staleness.
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If you haven’t been paying attention, Ajax are absolutely crushing everyone in their path — so much so, that FiveThirtyEight’s Global Club Soccer Rankings rate them as the fourth-best team in the world. Now, that’s probably an overestimation of their actual quality, but I don’t need to get into that. Ryan O’Hanlon already did the work for me when he asked us to jump on the bandwagon way earlier than most (September 28, to be exact).
The point is that Ajax seem to be legit — something that was further affirmed by their 4-0 dismantling of Borussia Dortmund this Tuesday in the Champions League.
But why are they legit?
Ajax’s Uniqueness
Per usual, there are a variety of interconnected reasons, starting with the player quality available to Erik ten Hag. Nevertheless, the names on the team sheet vs. the Black and Yellow don’t exactly pop off the page like the ones in that 18/19 side (i.e. Frenkie de Jong, Mathijs de Ligt, Hakim Ziyech, Donny van de Beek, etc.).
Nevertheless, Ajax seem nearly as impressive as the team that was seconds away from a Champions League final appearance, suggesting that there is something else at work: tactical brilliance.
On the surface — and due to the whole Cruyff thing — Ajax seem like your garden-variety positional play side that likes to press and possess, but such an oversimplification drowns out the uniqueness they’ve brought to the whole concept.
It’s very easy for positional play pretenders to design teams that quickly devolve into laborious controllers. This can be caused by a number of factors, whether that be a lack of creativity in bringing the theory to life, an absence of players of the right profile, or a conservative mentality.
Thomas Tuchel might arguably be the best coach in the world but he has continued to struggle to turn Chelsea into a reliable destroyer of low blocks (and he was brilliant at it with Dortmund), achieving his Champions League success last season through defensive mastery.
Even Pep Guardiola appears to have taken a safer route after the scintillating displays of City’s Centurions, taking the failures of 2019/20 and Covid-ball as signs to slow things down, make everything more structural, and get solid against the ball.
Ajax stands in stark contrast to these trends. They play in a manner that is more reminiscent of a chaotic transition approach, emphasizing high-tempo distribution and lots of verticality. Yet, they don’t seem to incur the disadvantages that come with this, managing to control the ball like the most dominant territorial machines in the world while remaining stable defensively.
The Secret: Boxes on the Wing
Ajax have their cake and eat it too by pursuing aggressive ball-sided overloads on the flanks, which often manifests in a ~box structure. There is less of an emphasis on having that neatly-spaced 2-3-5 shape in favor of completely dominating zones near the ball.
Against Dortmund, Ajax formed a lot of these on the left between left-winger Dušan Tadić, left central midfielder Ryan Gravenberch, left back Daley Blind, and defensive midfielder Edson Álvarez.
Gravenberch would regularly abandon his nominal position in the halfspace, pushing to the touchline to interchange with Tadić. This frequent positional rotation made keeping tabs on both players difficult and sometimes opened up the channel for a dagger ball. It also enabled Gravenberch to receive to feet and took advantage of his ability to drive and initiate combinations.
When taking into account Sébastien Haller’s proximity to the action and the potential for a far side midfielder to join proceedings, it’s obvious that ten Hag has designed a system that encourages his players to work their way through tight spaces. This requires risk-taking and unpredictability, which his structure perfectly facilitates; it’s easy for the players to visualize a box and establish it, even if different personnel are involved and quick adjustments are needed. Just take the final clip, where Álvarez backs off because Antony has joined the fray.
The simplicity and close connections of ten Hag’s box creates the perfect base for dynamic movement and rapid-pass sequences, leading to an endless deluge of creative penalty-area entries.
Should the opposition adjust by committing more defensive numbers, they risk opening up the far side, which Ajax can access through those nearby passing options and high-tempo circulation.
Ajax engage in more normal switching actions, too, primarily utilizing them when they haven’t quite arranged the right structure or have been blocked off effectively. Once they work their way to the right wing, they seek to configure the same box, although there are some differences.
Antony is a more eager touchline threat than Tadić, meaning that one of Steven Berghuis or Haller completes the square in the halfspace. However, that is far from set in stone, as the act of reorganization can be complicated by players being left out of their nominal positions.
It is in these moments where one witnesses just how liquid Ajax can be without caving to disorder. Again, the value of the box as a clear guiding principle keeps the seemingly frantic movement coherent.
Did Noussair Mazraoui decide to roam inside and make a run in behind? No problem, Berghuis will fix a point deeper and center-back Jurriën Timber will drive forward to finalize the picture.
The Box as a Launching Point for Underlaps
Speaking of fullback runs off-the-shoulder:
The freedom for anyone to be anywhere, as long as the box initially manifests, creates plenty of scenarios where the fullback can explode into the channel. The center-back can’t back off too much because there’s always the potential of playing to feet, which was the original intention of this tactic; yet, get too close, and you’ve left real estate to your back.
Defenses can’t just worry about what’s in front of them, though. A Mazraoui underlap starting from the right halfspace may not be all that unexpected, but Blind flying in from deep on the blindside definitely is.
And that represents the true beauty of what ten Hag has done.
The Box as Defensive Security
By putting intelligent, technical players in close proximity to each other governed by simple, clearly-definable rules, Ajax’s tactical maestro has fostered the perfect environment for invention. It’s up to the players to figure it out, but they’re able to produce solutions in the most beneficial context possible — both for the individual and the team.
The box provides a level of security that frees the mind from the anxiety of losing the ball, as the shape turns out to be pretty valuable for getting possession straight back. The compact configuration on the flanks is ideal for counterpressing; it fosters ready access to the ball and adjacent outlets can be easily covered thanks to Ajax’s aggressive bias to the very same side in possession.
Ajax scored their fourth and final goal vs. Dortmund in this manner, first building through the box down the right before recovering possession twice.
You can (barely) see goalkeeper Gregor Kobel slumping his shoulders in disbelief once the ball touches the net, thoroughly dispirited by what he’s had to endure and the performance of his team.
Let’s be clear: Borussia Dortmund were awful on the day and something seems to be off about them at the moment. Although BVB are second in the Bundesliga table, they’re leaking goals and have looked thoroughly out-of-control trying to institute Marco Rose’s vertical, attacking style.
But, in a way, doesn’t that further highlight how special this Ajax team is? Rose is one of the most highly-rated coaches in the world managing a squad that has more pound-for-pound talent than any Dutch team could ever dream of and Dortmund are currently a disaster. This is not to say that the latter’s project is destined to fail, for it has only begun. Rather, their struggles paint a vivid picture of just how difficult it is to to play at that high-octane pace — as a front-foot team — without imploding.
Maybe Rose can take a hint from a humbling defeat and start boxing the wings like ten Hag to turn the ship around.