At some point in this century, Holland became Germany and Germany Holland. You've learned to play exciting offensive pressing football and have won less than you deserve. And we started to play ugly scaredy-footed football and got on with the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, as would have been appropriate.

Good neighbors sometimes steal each other's ideas. When things went well for the Netherlands, around the year 2000, you stole ours. And later we served ourselves with you.

And so is the original idea, which is behind the success of the current Ajax team, which has thrown out the title defender Real Madrid with heady attacking football and meets in the quarter-finals of the Champions League on Juventus in the evening (21 clock, live ticker SPIEGEL ONLINE, TV: Dazn) : German.

Actually, Dutch teams are unlikely to succeed today. Ajax took in 92 million euros last year. That's one-eighth of what Real has earned. And the Dutch national team had not even managed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. So the question arises: Why is Ajax Amsterdam just so successful?

Part one of the explanation: Behind almost every success story in football is money. The legendary Ajax Academy regularly spawns players that are sold to larger clubs. Until recently, however, the Amsterdammers refused to spend the proceeds. Johan Cruyff, the 2016 deceased granddad of modern Dutch football who unleashed a power struggle at Ajax in 2011, used to say, "I have never seen a sack of money score a goal."

A little silly point of view - with a sack of money you can finally buy a player who scores goals - which nevertheless became the rule at Ajax. Cruyff technical director Marc Overmars earned himself the nickname "Marc Netto" for his frugality in the club. Overmars, formerly a world-class player, firmly and firmly stated that high spending could jeopardize the club's existence. Although money was there, Overmars bought for years only bargains and capped the player salaries to a maximum of about one million euros a year. Ajax's first team was treated like a cheap graduating class for home grown.

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Hakim Ziyech

The attitude changed on August 24, 2016. Ajax went down in Rostov 1: 4 and did not qualify for the Champions League. Six days later, under pressure, "Marc Netto" spent eleven million euros for Moroccan playmaker Hakim Ziyech of FC Twente, saying he did not need Ajax before. Ziyech played a major role in helping Amsterdam reach the Europa League final in 2017 (losing 2-0 to Manchester United). Suddenly Ajax was a shopping club.

Last summer, they lured Dusan Tadic and Daley Blind from the Premier League to Amsterdam. With a salary of well over two million euros Tadic is not only the best, but also the highest paid player in the Dutch league. Many of his teammates received salary increases. Overmars has denied lavish transfers for his players David Neres and Kasper Dolberg. Meanwhile, Overmars rightly insists on not being called "Marc Netto" anymore.

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Ajax Amsterdam: Shopping more, training better

Part two of the explanation: German thinking. Most recently, Dutch football has degenerated into a horizontal game. The most difficult task for opposing teams was not to die of boredom while waiting for a bad cross pass that they could intercept and then counter. It was not until 2016/2017 that the then Ajax and current Leverkusen coach Peter Bosz introduced a fast style of play, which relied on steep passes and Gegenpressing. In other words, a German style.

The current Ajax coach Erik ten Hag, who followed in 2017 on Bosz, has brought many ideas from Germany, where he coached from 2013 to 2015, the second team of FC Bayern. He likes to get excited about the football disease "Hollanditus", which consists of endless cross and back passes being played in the defense: "I think there is no country in the world where center-backs play the ball more often."

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Erik ten Hag

In the Dutch press Ten Hag was written down, until the night in Bernabéu. He is bald, uncharismatic, speaks in a hoarse voice, in a choppy provincial dialect, and as a player was a journeyman who changed clubs every few years - and never played for Ajax. He also violates the cruyffs'sche law that the club should always be headed by ex-players. But he has brought modern German football ideas to Holland. For him, there are two crucial moments: when you win the ball and when you lose it.

When winning the ball, the opposing defense is usually disordered, so you should play fast forward. If the ball is lost, it is pressed as energetically as possible for five seconds to get the ball back. This season, it has been possible to observe how an opponent's defender has been put under pressure by five Ajax players at the same time. It is a total Jürgen Klopp system, but also a renaissance of "Total Football": Just look at one of the great Ajax teams of the 1970s to Cruyff, who chased the ball in the pack.

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pep Guardiola

Above all, Ten Hag knows the latest tactic trend: the rebirth of dribbling. Speaking privately with Pep Guardiola, he tells how difficult it has become in the meantime to bring modern world-class defenders with passports from the concept. Too fit, they are too well trained. That's why, according to Guardiola, there are players of immense importance who can generate superior numbers by prevailing in one-on-one situations. Tadic, Ziyech, Neres and Frenkie de Jong are such players.

Part three of the explanation: Ajax brings forth world-class player again. De Jong was one of six players in the Ajax starting line-up in Madrid who spent time at the club's youth academy. Another example is Matthijs de Ligt, the mighty 19-year-old center-back, who has already made more than 100 matches for the first team and is also on the national team.

Presumably, Ajax Amsterdam will be eliminated against Juventus. In the summer, several players will switch to bigger clubs. But Ajax will buy new stars. Overmars now has some 140 million euros to spend with the Champions League earnings and the Barcelona transfer for De Jong. Add to that the presumable summer income (De Ligt will probably change for a fortune to FC Barcelona), and you're at over 200 million euros. That's what Dortmund, RB Leipzig, Wolfsburg and Bayern spent together last summer.

Ajax is back. Thank you Germany.