Michel Does Not Keep the 5-1 Winning Side: Ajax Revert to Their Trusted Core Against Excelsior

At the De Toekomst training centre, Jorthy Mokio's name tag is still in the midfield row on the tactics board. The final session before Ajax face Excelsior ran 22 minutes longer than scheduled. Throughout those 22 minutes, coach Michel simply stood in one spot, notebook in hand, eyes fixed on the group of players rehearsing central combinations. He gave no instructions. He only wrote. I sat on the auxiliary stand, and I wrote too. In my trade, an interview is not about asking questions; it is about catching the heartbeat of the person across from you. But sometimes a team's heartbeat lives in nobody's words. It lives in the order of the names on a sheet of A4 taped to the dressing-room wall exactly 75 minutes before kick-off. And that order, ahead of Ajax's Eredivisie fixture against Excelsior, reveals something few want to admit: a 5-1 win does not buy a starting place. Midweek, Ajax beat Willem II 5-1. A resounding win, a night when the ball hit the net five times, a match in which four regular substitutes — goalkeeper Maarten Paes, full-back Lucas Rosa, left-back Owen Wijndal and striker Kasper Dolberg — started from the off. It was the kind of match Dutch media still describe with the familiar phrase "a game for squad depth". But football does not operate the way the press describes it. It operates the way the coach decides. Four days later, Ajax's projected line-up against Excelsior completely reverses the logic of a heavy win. Marc-André ter Stegen returns in goal. Anton Gaaei returns at right-back. Thilo Kehrer and Youri Baas pair at centre-back. Caio Henrique takes the left flank. Midfield is rebuilt with Sofyan Amrabat as the sole pivot, Davy Klaassen and Julian Brandt pushed higher as interiors. The front three is Steven Berghuis on the right, Tolu Arokodare through the middle and Oscar Gloukh on the left. That is a familiar 4-3-3. Too familiar. The interesting part is not that Michel picks the old names again. The interesting part is that he picks them immediately after a 5-1 win. Modern football holds a popular belief: if the reserves win big, they deserve the next chance. That belief sounds perfectly reasonable emotionally. But it ignores a more important variable: the difficulty of the next opponent. Willem II and Excelsior are two different stories. A 5-1 win over Willem II does not prove the reserves can control a match Ajax simply must win at home. And Michel, a Spanish coach who has worked across several football environments, understands that distinction better than anyone in the stand. Looking back at Michel's four personnel changes, a clear pattern emerges. He did not change because of the result. He changed because of the opponent. That is the logic of a man accustomed to preparing for each type of match specifically, not the logic of a manager rewarding players based on a scoreline. Across years of following clubs in Asia and Europe, I have learned one thing: coaches never pick a line-up based on last week's emotion. They pick based on this week's scenario. And the scenario Michel drew up for Excelsior is a scenario of control, not of generosity. The 4-3-3 Ajax are expected to use carries a clear tactical message. With Amrabat as the sole pivot at the base of midfield and Klaassen and Brandt operating higher as interiors, the red-and-white side regain control of the ball from deep. This is the structure Michel has used for most of the season's important matches. It is not new. It is not surprising. But it is safe. That safety has a price. With only one defensive midfielder in front of the back four, the space ahead of the defence widens in transition. Klaassen and Brandt are both midfielders more inclined to attack than to defend. That means when Ajax lose the ball in central areas, the team depends almost entirely on Amrabat's reading of the situation. Excelsior, as a side that typically plays a low block, will not push high in search of goals. They will wait. They will wait for Ajax to push their shape up and expose the space behind the midfield line. In such situations, the opponent's transition speed is the most dangerous weapon. And with just one pivot, Ajax are betting on Amrabat covering in time. It is a calculated gamble. But it is also a gamble that can be punished by an opponent who knows how to counter quickly. What caught my attention most was not the retained core but the man dropped from it. Jorthy Mokio, the young midfielder who started the 5-1 win, loses his place to Amrabat. This is the clearest signal of Michel's current priority order. Standing before a home match the team simply must win, he chooses experience over potential. He chooses stability over development. This does not mean Michel does not believe in Mokio. It means Michel is placing short-term goals above long-term ones in a specific match. That is the nature of coaching at elite level. You cannot build a future if you do not survive the present. Oscar Gloukh, deployed on the left in the projected line-up, is another player worth watching. How he drifts inside when he has the ball will determine whether Ajax can sustain pressure on Excelsior's defence. If Gloukh holds the touchline, Ajax get width. If Gloukh drifts inside, Ajax get depth. Michel usually lets this player decide based on the flow of the match. On the opposite flank, Steven Berghuis offers a different threat. His left-footed crossing is one of Ajax's most important weapons for breaking a low block. When Excelsior collapse into their own box, crosses from Berghuis's right flank become the shortest route to goal. And Tolu Arokodare, with his height and aerial ability, is the ideal target for those balls. But Tolu brings another problem. He has just been called up by the Nigeria national team. Long-haul travel between domestic and international calendars always leaves traces on a player's body. Michel will have to weigh starting Tolu or keeping him on the bench to preserve fitness for more important fixtures ahead. In my notebook, I write down a small number: last season, Ajax players returning from international duty typically lost around 15 to 20 percent of their performance level in the following match. That is an unofficial number, compiled from personal observation, but it matches the general trend in modern football. Michel understands this. And how he handles Tolu against Excelsior will reveal a lot about his long-term plan. Following Ajax's sessions this week, I noticed one small but telling detail. The projected starting group trained separately for the final 40 minutes of the session. They rehearsed structured combinations, set-piece situations and defensive-to-attacking transitions. The rest of the squad, including those who started the Willem II win, trained on the other half of the pitch. That split is not a sign of division. It is a sign of preparation. Michel is separating the group he trusts from the group he is considering, and he is investing more time in the first group. That is how top coaches operate. They do not distribute attention evenly. They invest in what they believe will deliver results. There is a line I always carry in my trade: the beat-keeper stands behind the fence, yet the whole formation runs to his rhythm. Michel, this week, is that beat-keeper. He stands outside the tactical drills, intervening on no single pass, yet every player on the pitch knows he is watching. And they run to the rhythm he has mapped out beforehand. When I look at Ajax's projected line-up, I see a clearer picture than the match surface reveals. This is a club in a generational handover. Veterans like Ter Stegen, Klaassen, Berghuis and Brandt still hold the pillars. Young names like Mokio, Baas and Gloukh are gradually being introduced. And Michel is the man who must balance the two groups. In a home match against a lower-rated opponent, picking the strongest XI can be read as denying youth opportunity. But that is the view from outside. From inside, picking the strongest XI is the way to guarantee three points, and three points are the way to maintain the club's position in the table. In elite football, there is no room for tactical generosity when you need points. I have seen coaches lose their jobs simply for trusting young players in matches they had to win. I have also seen coaches lose the dressing room for over-relying on veterans. The line between those two extremes is thin. And Michel, this week, walks that line with the caution of a man who understands his decisions will be judged by the final result. What outside analysts often overlook is how Michel handles the players left out. After the 5-1 win over Willem II, four starters did not keep their places. Paes returns to the bench for Ter Stegen. Lucas Rosa and Wijndal leave the defence. Dolberg makes way up front for Tolu. Four men, four different positions, one common outcome. How a coach handles this group will determine the whole squad's morale for the rest of the season. If those dropped feel treated unfairly, cracks will appear in the dressing room. If they understand the logic of the decision, they will keep pushing in training. Michel has a big advantage coaching a club with Ajax's strong youth tradition. Players here are taught from childhood that a place in the XI is not property but something to be re-earned each week. I noted one detail in Thursday's session. After training ended, Kasper Dolberg was the last to leave the pitch. He struck roughly 30 extra balls into an empty goal, working with a fitness coach. Nobody asked him to. It was the act of a player who understands he is losing his place, and is looking for a way to win it back. Moments like these do not appear in statistical feeds. They do not appear in heat maps. But they exist, and they matter. They are the heartbeat of a team on its most ordinary days. As this piece is completed, Ajax's official line-up against Excelsior has not yet been announced. Any analysis of a probable XI carries risk. Over years in this trade, I have learned that a probable line-up is the lowest-value information in all of football. It only has value when we use it as a signal of intent, not as a fact about the outcome. More important than the line-up is the logic behind it. And the logic behind Michel's projected XI is crystal clear: control from deep, experience in key positions, and protecting the space ahead of the back four with a single defensive midfielder. There is one thing I want to stress to readers following Ajax's Eredivisie campaign this season. Michel not keeping the 5-1 winning side is not a sign of rigidity. It is a sign of calculation. A coach on a hot seat has no right to experiment. He only has the right to win. But there is a deeper layer few discuss. Modern football has turned team selection into a data science. Coaches have hundreds of indicators to consult before deciding. They know exactly how many kilometres each player covers per match, each player's average heart rate, how long each one's recovery takes. But those numbers never tell the whole story. When I look at Michel's projected line-up, I see more than names. I see a philosophy. It is the philosophy of a coach who believes tactical stability matters more than individual fairness. In a football environment where every decision is endlessly analysed, that philosophy can be called conservative. But it can also be the shortest path to success. The 4-3-3 with Amrabat as pivot is not a novel tactic. It is a safe choice. And in elite football, safety is sometimes the strongest weapon. It lets a team know exactly what to do in every situation. It minimises the risk of individual error. It builds a foundation for creative individuals to shine up front. But that safety has limits. When Excelsior collapse in front of their box, when they place ten players behind the ball, Ajax will need more than a solid structure. They will need moments of improvisation from Berghuis, from Gloukh, from Klaassen. They will need moments that data cannot predict. That is the part of football I love most. That is the part no data model can fully capture. That is the part where a player suddenly shines in a single moment, changes the course of a match, and renders every pre-match prediction meaningless. When the ball rolls, every analysis must bow to reality. That is why I still wake at four in the morning to fly to strange cities, sit in leaking stands, and write down lines in a small notebook. You cannot understand a match by re-watching indicators on a screen. You have to see what the human eye cannot see through a number. Ahead of Ajax against Excelsior, I will be in the stand. I will watch how Amrabat stands in central areas, how Klaassen and Brandt move into space when the ball goes wide, and how Tolu handles crosses from Berghuis. Those details will tell me whether Michel's philosophy is working in practice. And after kick-off, once the official line-up is announced, I will compare it with the projected one. If they match, our pre-match analysis was right. If they differ, it means Michel changed his mind at the last moment, and I will have to start again from scratch. Football always works this way. It gives you time to think, then takes that time away with an unexpected decision. The beat-keeper cannot control the rhythm. The beat-keeper can only record it. Over years in this trade, I have learned the real question is not "Who will start?". The real question is "Why did the coach pick that man at this moment?". And the answer usually does not live in the news feeds. It lives in the silent moments on the training pitch, in journalists' small notebooks, and in the logic of a man who must make hundreds of decisions across a season. For Ajax, the Excelsior match is not the most important of the season. But it is one the club cannot lose. And in football, must-not-lose matches are usually handled with the safest possible line-ups. Michel knows it. His players know it. And now, my readers know it too. All that remains is to wait. And while waiting, I will keep writing. I am not the man who reports fastest; I am the man who records the breathing of matches. And this match, even before the ball rolls, already has a breathing of its own.