Maurice Steijn: From Sparta to Ajax – A Look into the New Trainer’s Football Vision

• Bass of Wit

  editor NOS Sport

Peter Bosz, Kasper Hjulmand or Kjetil Knutsen. One of those three would become Ajax’s new trainer. But Bosz was presented in Eindhoven on Monday. Hjulmand extended as national coach of Denmark. And Knutsen stayed around the Arctic Circle with the Norwegian Bodø/Glimt.

And then on Sunday evening at about seven o’clock, just like that, the name of Maurice Steijn came up. Less than 24 hours later, Sparta director Gerard Nijkamp confirmed the news: Steijn will be Ajax’s new trainer.

Sven Mislintat, the new technical director of Ajax, seemed to have set his sights on the arrival of a foreign trainer to succeed (interim) John Heitinga. Things got serious with Knutsen in particular, but the deal fell through.

Where PSV brought in a trainer with Bosz who seems to fit better in Amsterdam in terms of football vision, there was suddenly Steijn at Ajax, who had never trained a top club. He did great at Sparta: he miraculously saved the team from Rotterdam from relegation in the summer of 2022, only to stunt in the following season with a sixth place and a place in the play-offs for European football.

And yet the shock wave through the Dutch football world was enormous. How did Mislintat come up with Steijn, the former trainer of modest clubs such as ADO Den Haag, VVV, NAC, Al-Wahda and Sparta, as trainer of Ajax?

Stan Valckx also looked up at the news, but somehow it doesn’t surprise him either. As technical manager, Valckx brought Steijn to VVV-Venlo in 2014, which then played in the first division.

What did he see in Steijn then? “I noticed that he let ADO play realistic football, but that he also looked for the attack as soon as he could and put high pressure on it. He clearly had two game plans that he worked with. If the first plan didn’t work, he knew with a more opportunistic second plan to get points.”

And VVV-Venlo needed that at that time. When Valckx appointed Steijn, the Limburgers played in the first division and promotion seemed far away. In the previous season, VVV had finished in a disappointing fifth place and had fallen in the play-offs against FC Dordrecht.

Valckx contacted Steijn after the departure of trainer René Trost. After a few phone calls, he was sure: this had to be the new man. “We quickly built a bond in those conversations and I was particularly impressed by his enthusiasm and conviction. I felt that he had a huge passion for football.”

That was also the first thing Steijn tried to convey in Venlo. Valckx: “It’s not just about what a trainer does on the field, but also how he comes across in the dressing room or in the room of the technical staff. He wanted to forge a unity and put a lot of time into it.”

Valckx had no illusions that Steijn would convert VVV into an offensive tiki-taka machine within a few months. We had to work quietly towards dominant play.

Steijn drags on the position game. “I was present for the majority of his training sessions: he spent a lot of time on position play, with many ‘hit twice’ exercises, which increased the pace in our game,” said Valckx.

In Steijn’s first two Limburg seasons things went a little better. In his second year, VVV came second behind Sparta, with football in which more and more lines were drawn. Everything came together in 2016/2017, says Valckx: then the attack was played with good football, with the title as a result.

“In the championship year, we managed to outplay opponents for most of the matches. But even then it was the case that if it didn’t work out once, we still achieved results in a different way.”

After five years in Venlo, Steijn moved to Abu Dhabi, where he was fired after just three matches. His season at NAC was also not what was hoped for. After missing out on promotion at the last minute, he was threatened and there were signals that angry supporters wanted to visit his house, after which the trainer left.

The resurrection followed at Sparta. With the same realistic football as he had played in Venlo, he miraculously kept the team from Rotterdam in the premier league and finished sixth last season.

Steijn wanted to make the game with Sparta against lesser opponents, as they also like to see at Ajax, but against teams from the left row he clearly left the ball to the opponent, according to Opta’s statistics.

He also did not hesitate to let his team play the long ball, only relegated Cambuur did that more often than Sparta. Ajax is in last place in this list. While Ajax tends to look at the footballing qualities of a keeper, the assignment for Sparta goalkeeper Nick Olij was very clear: in most cases he did not opt ​​for the build-up, but for a long ball towards striker Tobias Lauritsen (1 meter 94 ).

His realistic football vision brought Steijn success at Sparta and VVV-Venlo, but a job of a different size awaits him in Amsterdam. With Hedwiges Maduro and Saïd Bakkati as (presumed) assistants, he must trump Feyenoord and PSV next season.

Valckx: “I definitely think he is ready. The only thing that can be difficult is dealing with egos, which you have more at a club like Ajax than with the teams he has trained. If the results disappointing, they will play their own game.”

Still, Valckx sees Steijn succeeding at Ajax. “He is someone who wants to see all facets of football in a team. Length, technique, positional play and strength. Ajax did not have that mix last year. If it did not work out in football, there was no solution. And Steijn can deliver that. “