Two Ajax signings under fire: fitness, not talent, is the verdict

Thirty minutes. That is the entire time Viktor Tsygankov spent on the pitch for his Ajax debut, and it is also the entire body of evidence one of Dutch football's best-known columnists used to reach a verdict on him.

In the top-of-the-table clash with PSV, Tsygankov came on from the bench. He lost the ball clumsily in a duel, then was beaten by his opponent in the sequence that led to Ajax's third conceded goal in a 1-3 defeat. Former player Hans Kraay junior, who writes a column for Voetbal International, called it a "painful conclusion". He went further about both new signings, Marcos Leonardo and Tsygankov: they "dare to turn up at their new club unfit", and to him that is "truly unbelievable".

The column was aggregated by Goal.com. Within days it became the main frame through which the Dutch public views the two most notable signings of Ajax's recent transfer window. One columnist speaks, and an entire story is shaped in his image.

A window in which the wallet opened wide

Ajax entered the window with two clear needs: to repair the attack and to add squad depth. They paid 20 million euros to bring Marcos Leonardo in from Al Hilal, and 4 million euros for Viktor Tsygankov from Girona, who arrived on the final day of the window. In the same window, Tolu Arokodare and Julian Brandt also joined.

Jordy Cruyff, the figure in charge of recruitment, was named by Kraay as the man who "opened his wallet wide". That framing matters: spending is tied directly to one individual, and with it, both success and failure are attributed to a single accountable person.

The on-pitch result is already clear. Ajax lost 1-3 to PSV in a top clash in which the tempo of the game was pushed very high. At the age of 34, Steven Berghuis was cited as the fitness benchmark, a player still able to meet that tempo while the new arrivals could not.

Based on my experience covering matches across European leagues, this is the kind of story that repeats almost cyclically: a big club spends money, loses a match, and a columnist turns two disconnected events into a complete indictment.

Two different failure modes merged into one

Marcos Leonardo and Viktor Tsygankov are dealing with two entirely different problems, yet both are filed under a single label: not fit enough.

Leonardo has been criticised for missing too many chances, and has lost his starting place to Tolu Arokodare. This is a finishing and rhythm problem. A striker needs the ball, needs feel, needs consecutive minutes to rediscover his reflexes inside the box. Without starts there is no feel; without feel there are more misses. That spiral feeds itself, and no fitness drill cuts through it.

Tsygankov sits on the other side of the story. He was not described as playing badly, but as struggling with the tempo. He lost duels, gave the ball away in situations a sharp player would have handled cleanly, then looked lost in his defensive duties. For a winger, that is the signature of a player operating above his current physical ceiling.

Merging those two problems into one label sounds forceful, but it hides something important. Leonardo needs minutes to solve his issue; Tsygankov needs a dedicated conditioning block before being exposed in top-level matches. These are two different problems, two different treatment plans, and one fitness narrative cannot describe both.

What Kraay is really targeting is the decision to arrive unprepared, not the footballing quality of the two players. That distinction matters, because it turns them into recoverable assets if fitness is restored, rather than permanent mistakes in the transfer market.

The 24-million-euro question

A 20-million-euro fee for a striker in the Dutch league sits in the upper bracket of the domestic market. For a young Brazilian with years of development ahead, the deal is structured as an asset in its appreciation phase: buy before the peak, sell at maturity. But a forward who misses plenty of chances and has already lost his starting place is exactly the profile that generates book-value impairment risk. If the slump persists, the loss will not sit on the pitch but on the balance sheet.

On the other side, a 4-million-euro fee for Tsygankov is unusually low for a player already established in Europe. Deals like that usually signal a contract nearing expiry, a return from injury, or a selling club eager to clear wage space. The source material does not specify which. Financial downside is low, but Ajax may have bought an option carrying more availability risk than performance certainty.

There is another notable detail: the geography of the deals. Ajax bought from Al Hilal of the Saudi Pro League, from Girona of La Liga, and brought in a player from German football. That is a diversified, cross-market recruitment profile, unlike the familiar Dutch template of scouting young talent from South America or from the domestic league itself. When Ajax must compete in markets where they are not the strongest spender, pressure on both transfer fees and adaptation rises accordingly.

This is where I want to pause a beat: a transfer does not buy a player – it buys the story people want to believe. Ajax believed they were buying a young striker who could appreciate and an experienced winger at a discount. The market did not object. Only the tempo of the match objected.

The contrarian angle: one appearance is not a verdict

One thing needs saying, even if it runs against the flow of the story: thirty substitute minutes in a top-level match are not enough to judge any player. Statistically, it is a meaningless sample. Yet Tsygankov has already been framed with phrases like "no success" and "painful conclusion" after a single appearance.

I have been on the other side of this situation. Years ago, working at an international youth tournament, I mispronounced a player's name three times in one half, and viewers called in to complain. The pitch never lies – it was only me who once misheard a name. The lesson was simple: live emotion cannot replace evidence, and a single moment cannot replace an entire process.

The second issue is more systemic. A single column, by a single writer, is shaping how the public sees two players. This is the amplification effect of opinion media: opinion stops describing reality and starts creating it. Once the "failed signing" label is attached it is very hard to peel off, and it affects both transfer value and player psychology. I do not write to be loved; I write to make people stop – and precisely because of that, I know the power of a misplaced phrase.

It is also worth noting that in the very same window, Ajax brought in Tolu Arokodare and Julian Brandt, and both received positive reviews. Tolu won his starting place on form and became a fan favourite. This was a two-sided transfer window, not a wholesale failure. A headline focused only on the negative hides that detail.

And if I am wrong anywhere, it is most likely here: I assume the fitness criticism comes entirely from outside the club. It may well originate from internal briefing channels and be amplified as a way of applying pressure to the players. I have no evidence for that, so it should stay at the level of hypothesis.

What to watch in the coming weeks

Crucially, Ajax are running a fitness-gated selection mechanism: minutes are decided by current readiness, not by transfer fee. A 20-million-euro player sitting behind a lower-profile striker is clear proof of that. For a club competing across multiple competitions, such a mechanism is sound on sporting grounds but creates enormous financial pressure when the most expensive signing contributes nothing.

Tsygankov's conditioning schedule is the first thing to watch. If he keeps being thrown into top-level matches while short of sharpness, responsibility lies with the coaching staff rather than the player. Alongside that is Leonardo's finishing rhythm: every match without a goal strips further value from that 20-million-euro outlay. And behind both sits the rotation plan for the forward line, given that Ajax's attack currently leans heavily on Tolu alone.

For a club whose financial model is built on buying low and selling high, a stalled 20-million-euro striker is not merely a sporting problem. It blocks the very pipeline that funds the next cycle. Ajax can absorb one season like this. What nobody has answered is how many consecutive ones they can absorb.

The silence after the whistle is the paragraph I most enjoy writing. Because once the stands fall quiet, only the talking data remains: minutes, chances, the number of times a player faded at the 70th minute. And that data will answer the question a column cannot.