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Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax, also referred to as Ajax Amsterdam, AFC Ajax, or simply Ajax(pronounced i-yax), is a football club from Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
History
Ajax is one of the top football clubs in the world. It is one of the "big three" clubs in the Netherlands that dominate the Dutch football scene. The other "big three" clubs are Feyenoord Rotterdam and PSV Eindhoven.
The club was founded in March 18, 1900 by the brothers Han and Johan Dade and based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The club is probably well-known by all football fans around the world with its recognizable white with a single red stripe home jersey. The club is also famous for its respectable youth program and has introduced to the world many great professional footballers such as Johan Cruijff and Marco van Basten. Its satellite club is the Ajax Cape Town of South Africa where youth players were drafted in the first team squad at some point of the seasonal campaign of the Eredivisie such as Steven Pienaar and Aaron Mokoena. In 1995, the year that they won the European Champions' League, the first team was best remembered as the team that could best represent the Dutch national team in all departments, with Edwin van der Sar in goalkeeping position, players such as Michael Reiziger, Frank de Boer, Danny Blind in defense, Ronald de Boer, Edgar Davids and Clarence Seedorf in midfield, as well as Patrick Kluivert and Marc Overmars in attack. Its current fortunes are mostly domestic-based notwithstanding some minor successes in the 2002-2003 Champions League campaign although its youth team continues to develop talented individuals like Rafael van der Vaart, Wesley Sneijder, Nigel de Jong and Johnny Heitinga who regularly represented their nation.
Ajax’s first stadium was built in 1911 out of wood and was simply called The Stadium. Later, the team moved to a new, proper stadium called De Meer in 1934. In 1996, Ajax changed to a new home ground known as the Amsterdam ArenA that was built at the cost of $134 million. The stadium is capable of holding up to approximately 52 000 people. Amsterdam Arena, also written in camel case: ArenA (Amsterdam southeast).
Honours
- Dutch championship: 29
- 1918, 1919, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1937, 1939, 1947, 1957, 1960, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1990, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2002, 2004.
- Dutch cup: 15
- 1917, 1943, 1961, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1979, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1993, 1998, 1999, 2002.
- Dutch supercup (renamed in 1996 as Johan Cruijff-schaal (Johan Cruijff Shield)): 4
Famous Ajax players
Current squad
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- 17
 Yannis Anastasiou
- 18
 Wesley Sneijder
- 20 Daniel de Ridder
- 21 Maarten Stekelenburg
- 23
 Zdenek Grygera
- 26 Hedwiges Maduro
- 27
 Tom de Mul
- 28
 Nourdin Boukhari
- 29
 Nicolae Mitea
- 30 Stanley Aborah
- 31
 Hans Vonk
- 38
 Rasmus Lindgren
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See also
External links
Official
Unofficial
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