Ajax Amsterdam

Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax, AFC Ajax or simply Ajax, is a Dutch professional football club from Amsterdam. The club was founded on March 18, 1900 and is one of the three traditional top clubs in the Netherlands. Since the founding of the Eredivisie, Ajax has continuously played in this top division. Ajax became Dutch champions thirty-six times, twenty-eight of which since the introduction of the Eredivisie in mid-1956. The German Kicker Sportmagazin called Ajax the second best football club of the twentieth century. According to the IFFHS, Ajax is the sixth most successful European club of the twentieth century and was voted World Club Team of the Year by the IFFHS in 1992. In the 1970s, Ajax belonged to the world top of football, with players such as Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Piet Keizer and under the leadership of coach Rinus Michels it won the European Cup three times in a row and the World Cup for club teams once. In 1996, Ajax left De Meer after having played there for 62 years. The stadium had had its day, partly due to new safety rules from UEFA.[25] In those years, Ajax used the Olympic Stadium as a base for its most important matches: the De Meer stadium could not accommodate more than 29,500 people, while the Olympic Stadium had a capacity of 64,000 from 1937 onwards. With the construction of the Amsterdam ArenA, later renamed Johan Cruyff Arena, the Olympic Stadium was said goodbye to in 1996. This stadium opened on August 14, 1996 with a friendly match against AC Milan, where they lost 0-3. To date, Ajax plays its matches in the Johan Cruyff ArenA.