Daley Blind Sees New Positivity at Ajax After Return

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

Fresh from a commanding 1-4 win over FK Vojvodina in the Conference League qualifying round, the 36-year-old defender cut a quietly satisfied figure as he reflected on a club that has lurched from crisis to crisis in recent seasons, yet now feels, to him, back on its feet.

“Yes, it was different from how I had left it. That’s true,” he told Ziggo Sport, a simple line that carried the weight of those turbulent years.

Ajax have been bruised: chaotic campaigns, managerial churn, fan unrest, a lost sense of identity. Blind left one version of the club; he has returned to another.

The surprise for him is how quickly the mood has shifted.

From the moment he stepped into the dressing room, Blind sensed it. The atmosphere, he said, had already been reset by coach Míchel. A new wind. A different tone. Positivity where there had been tension and doubt.

“The tone had already been set by the coach. There was a new wind blowing, there was a lot of positivity in the group,” Blind said, making a point of crediting the Spanish coach.

It was not a throwaway compliment. For a player who has lived through both the golden and grim stretches in Amsterdam, his words carried the authority of experience. “And of course that still has to grow as well.”

That last line matters. Ajax are not “back” on the strength of two matches in late July. But Blind sees the roots of something that has been missing.

Inside the squad, he hears the same thing. The players, he noted, talk about the “difficult years” not only for the supporters in the stands, but for the dressing room itself. Ajax, for all their stature, had lost the feeling of being a real team. The unity. The trust. The sense that winning was the natural consequence of who they were, not an occasional escape from chaos.

Now, Blind believes, that feeling is returning.

“That feeling of being a team, of unity, of confidence. Of positivity that goes hand in hand with victories,” he said. “I think we have been doing well with that over the last two matches as well.”

Two games, two steps. The scoreline in Novi Sad was emphatic enough that next week’s return leg against Vojvodina at home already looks like a formality. Ajax did what a serious European club should do in a qualifier: impose themselves early, manage the game, kill the tie.

The real test, though, is not Vojvodina. It is what comes next.

Assuming they complete the job, Ajax are likely to face Shelbourne FC in the third qualifying round, after the Irish side’s 5-2 win over Nomme Kalju of Estonia. That will bring a different kind of challenge: a motivated underdog, a tighter margin for error, and the expectation that Ajax will not only progress, but do so with authority.

Blind, however, already has one eye on a stage closer to home.

The VriendenLoterij Eredivisie season is about to start, and he sounds as optimistic as he has in years. “And that has to keep growing and really come alive again. I think that is moving in the right direction,” he said.

It was not the language of a nostalgic veteran clinging to the past. It was a senior pro looking around a once-fractured club and sensing that, under Míchel, something coherent is forming again.

Ajax have been drifting. Blind believes the course has finally changed. Now the question is simple: can this new wind carry them all the way back to where they think they belong?