Daley Blind Returns to Ajax: Embracing Change and Optimism

Daley Blind has walked back into an Ajax he barely recognises – and he likes what he sees.

The 36-year-old defender, back in Amsterdam for another chapter with his boyhood club, cut a relaxed but purposeful figure after the 1-4 win over FK Vojvodina in the Conference League qualifying round. The result all but settled the tie. The mood around Ajax, he suggested, is starting to shift as well.

“It was different from how I had left it. That’s true,” Blind told Ziggo Sport when asked what he found on his return.

Ajax have been through turbulence since his previous spell: managerial changes, internal unrest, a slide from their usual standards. The club he rejoined had scars.

What struck him was not the damage, but the response.

From the first day back at De Toekomst and the Johan Cruijff Arena, Blind sensed a new current running through the place. “From the moment I walked in, the tone had already been set by the coach. There was a new wind blowing, there was a lot of positivity in the group,” he said, a clear nod to Spanish coach Míchel and the atmosphere he has created. “And of course that still has to grow as well.”

That word – grow – keeps returning around Ajax now. The results are a start. The 1-4 victory in Serbia, on the back of another positive performance, has given players and fans something they have been starved of in recent seasons: simple, straightforward optimism.

Blind hears it in the dressing room. “You hear that from the lads as well. They have also been difficult years. For the fans. But also for the players themselves,” he admitted. Ajax, a club that prides itself on style and swagger, had become tight, nervous, burdened by expectation and recent failure.

That is where Míchel’s early work appears to bite. Blind spoke about “that feeling of being a team, of unity, of confidence. Of positivity that goes hand in hand with victories. I think we have been doing well with that over the last two matches as well.” The performances are still a work in progress, but the basics – togetherness, clarity, belief – are reappearing.

The scoreboard in Novi Sad underlined it. Ajax were ruthless enough to turn the first leg into what looks like a formality. Next week’s return in Amsterdam should be a procession, a chance to fine-tune rather than fight for survival. Waiting beyond that, almost certainly, will be Shelbourne FC in the third qualifying round after the Irish side’s 5-2 win over Nomme Kalju of Estonia.

So the path to the Conference League proper is opening up. The domestic stage now looms into view as well.

With the new VriendenLoterij Eredivisie season approaching, Blind sounds like a man who believes Ajax can rejoin the conversation at the top rather than merely chase it. “That has to keep growing and really come alive again. I think that is moving in the right direction,” he said.

Ajax have been here before: at a crossroads, with a new coach, a new mood, and the old expectations. The difference this time may be that one of their most experienced sons is convinced the club finally has the wind at its back again.