In recent days, Sjoerd Mossou has watched the images of PSV’s celebration in amazement. The people of Eindhoven crowned themselves champions of the Netherlands for the first time since 2018 last Sunday and were honored in the city center a day later. What was striking was that some PSV supporters walked around with Sven Mislintat’s name on the back of their shirt. According to Mossou, the ‘frame’ that exists around the former technical director of Ajax is ‘laughable’ nonsense.
Mislintat started his tough job at Ajax a year ago. The Amsterdam team had appointed the German as director of football affairs and it was therefore up to him to appoint a new head coach and put together a strong selection. But just like the choice for Maurice Steijn, most of Mislintat’s decisions on the transfer market also turned out wrong. In Eindhoven, Mislintat is regularly thanked for the mess he left behind in Amsterdam. But according to Mossou, the German cannot be entirely blamed for this.
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“There were a few funny Brabant jokers walking around at the championship party in Eindhoven this week. They had the name ‘Mislintat’ printed on the back of their shirts, as a nod to the great rival in Amsterdam, and held their shirts up in the air, laughing happily.”Mossou writes in his column in the Algemeen Dagblad. Mossou notices that the name of Mislintat in the Netherlands has ‘almost literally’ become a synonym for the ‘total decline’ of Ajax between 2022 and 2024. “Entire tribes now see it that way, from frustrated Ajax players to serious analysts, from PSV supporters to John with the Cap. Everyone has gradually come to believe in the same stupid frame: that everything – absolutely everything – is the fault of one flamboyant blond German with a hard head.”
But according to Mossou, that is not the case at all. The reporter even calls it ‘laughable nonsense’. “Mislintat managed Ajax during just one inimitable transfer summer. He signed far too many mediocre players, that’s for sure, he paid questionable prices for them, and appointed a completely unsuitable trainer”, so it reads. Mossou knows that the Mislintat era at Ajax was ‘certainly not a success’, “but believe it or not: the man was not involved in many other disastrous Ajax decisions. Ajax has been in total decline for more than two years, Mislintat was employed there for barely four months.”
For example, Mislintat was not involved in the ‘disastrous’ transfer summer of 2022, it was not the German who directed Daley Blind towards the exit in an ’embarrassing’ manner and it was not he who did not want to appoint Peter Bosz ‘at all costs’. new Ajax coach. “Want to trade Ajax shares like a cowboy? You can blame Mislintat quite a lot, but he wasn’t that arrogant and irresponsible.” While things are still uneasy at Ajax, Mislintat now has ‘a nice new’ job at Borussia Dortmund. “Of course, Mislintat did not destroy Ajax alone. The club – in almost all conceivable sections – did this all by itself.”
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