Ajax Amsterdam

Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax (Dutch pronunciation: /ˈaːjɑks/), simply known as A. F. C. Ajax, Ajax de Ámsterdam, or more popularly Ajax, is a football club based in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. It was founded on 18 March 1900 — although its origins date back to 1894 under the name Foot-ball Club Ajax — and has played in the country's top division, the Eredivisie, since the year of the competition's foundation. Historically it is one of the three clubs that dominate elite football in the Netherlands, forming De Grote Drie (the Big Three) together with its rivals PSV — with whom it contests "De Topper" — and Feyenoord, with whom it contests "De Klassieker" or "the Dutch classic". These teams are also the only teams in the Netherlands that have never been relegated in that country's football.

It is the most successful club in Dutch football with 36 League Championships, 20 Cup Championships and 9 Super Cups, for a total of 65 national titles, and holds the record for trophies won in the first two. At international level it is recognised as one of the most important football teams in the world thanks to its honours, with a total of 10 international titles — among which stand out 4 Champions League titles, the premier club competition in Europe; they have also won the Intercontinental Cup twice, the UEFA Super Cup twice, one Cup Winners' Cup, the 1991–92 UEFA Cup, as well as the Karl Rappan Cup, an unofficial predecessor of the UEFA Intertoto Cup, in 1962. The club is one of the five teams that have earned the right to wear the multiple-winner badge on the left sleeve of the shirt and the right to keep the European Cup permanently, having won it consecutively between 1971 and 1973. In 1972 it completed a treble by winning the Dutch Eredivisie, the KNVB Cup and the European Cup. Ajax's most recent international trophies were the UEFA Champions League and the Intercontinental Cup, both in 1995, where it defeated Milan in the final, and it lost the 1996 Champions League final on penalties to Juventus. On 7 December 2021, after the home match against Sporting CP, Ajax joined a small list of eight football clubs that have won all six group-stage matches in a single season of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League.

It is also one of the three teams to win the treble and the Intercontinental Cup or the Club World Cup in the same season/calendar year, which it achieved in the 1971–72 season. Ajax, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Manchester United are the five clubs that have won all three major UEFA tournaments.

Together with Feyenoord of Rotterdam, they are the only Dutch teams among the only 32 clubs in the world that have won the highest world club football championship. Owing to FIFA's recognition in 2017, Ajax is officially the country's top world champion, having won the Intercontinental Cup in 1972 and 1995 respectively.

At national level, Ajax has won the double nine times, winning the national championship and the KNVB Cup in the same season, and it is the only club to have won the national championship, the KNVB Cup and the Dutch Super Cup in the same season, in 2001/02 and 2018/19.

In the UEFA ranking of the best clubs in Europe, on 7 March 2022 Ajax was ranked fourteenth in the 2021/22 season as the best Dutch club with a total of 82.500 points. The German magazine Kicker Sportmagazin rated Ajax as the second best football club of the 20th century. According to the IFFHS, Ajax is the seventh best European club of the 20th century and was voted World Club Team of the Year by the IFFHS in 1992. In 2000, during the election of the FIFA Club of the Century, Ajax, together with the Brazilian club Santos, finished jointly in fifth place among the best football clubs of the 20th century. In addition, Ajax was named European Team of the Year four times, in 1969, 1971, 1972 and 1973, and five times named Dutch Sports Team of the Year, in 1968, 1969, 1972, 1987 and 1995. In 1995, Ajax was crowned World Team of the Year by World Soccer magazine.

Since 1996 it has played at the Johan Cruyff Arena (until 2018 the Amsterdam Arena), which opened in 1996 and has a capacity of 55,500 spectators. It previously played at the De Meer Stadion and, for big and international matches, at the Olympic Stadium of Amsterdam. The club's kit is white with a red vertical stripe on the shirt. Since the 2012/13 season Ajax has had a women's team that plays in the Eredivisie Vrouwen.