Ajax vs Excelsior: The Probable Line-Up Is Not Wrong — The People Reading It Are

On a Saturday morning, I sat in the usual café on Rue Victor Hugo in Lyon, an espresso long gone cold, my eyes fixed on Ajax's probable line-up for the match against Excelsior. The first line stopped me: Ajax's goal was manned by Marc-André ter Stegen. The fourth line had Julian Brandt. The fifth had Sofyan Amrabat at the base of midfield. I read it three times. Not because my eyes were failing, but because I recognised myself in that team sheet.

Twenty-five years in this trade, and I have written hundreds of pieces like this. I know the feeling of typing out eleven names, slotting them into a 4-3-3, adding the word "probable" to the headline, and pushing it out for clicks. I also know how starved of data that feeling can be: when there is no xG, no PPDA, no possession share, the probable line-up becomes the only dish left on the table.

And today, that dish smells off.

The thing nobody wants to look at is this: this is an unverified prediction circulating as fact.

To be fair, let me rebuild the frame before I smash it.

Ajax host Excelsior at home, a routine Eredivisie round. The match is broadcast live on ESPN 2. A few days earlier, Ajax had beaten Willem II 5-1 in a midweek fixture. A handsome scoreline. One that gives any coach an excuse to keep a winning side intact.

Míchel did not do that.

He dropped four midweek starters back to the bench: goalkeeper Paes, Lucas Rosa, Owen Wijndal and Kasper Dolberg. He restored the group he trusts. That is the clearest selection logic a coach can have: a midweek win does not buy fringe players a starting shirt, it merely confirms that the first team is still the first team.

The shape is described as a possession-based 4-3-3. The back four comprises Anton Gaaei, Thilo Kehrer, Youri Baas and Caio Henrique. In midfield, Amrabat sits at the base with Davy Klaassen and Brandt as the two interiors. Up front, Steven Berghuis drifts right, Tolu Arokodare plays as the No. 9, and Oscar Gloukh drifts left.

I look at it and see something painfully familiar: this is not a line-up, it is a statement of the coach's authority.

Now the interesting part.

The most telling detail of this selection is not who is picked, but who is dropped.

Jorthy Mokio — the young midfielder who started the 5-1 win — loses his place to Amrabat. A young player makes way for a veteran name. In a home fixture where Ajax are heavy favourites against Excelsior. That decision belongs to insurance, not development.

I call it the pressure selection — where a coach buys safety with a player's seniority. When you pick a seasoned holding midfielder over a young one in a match you simply must win, you are telling the dressing room that experience beats potential. And you are telling yourself: do not drop points.

Tactically, a single-pivot structure creates two trade-offs. First, Ajax gain more control in build-up, because Amrabat can drop deep to receive from the centre-backs and pivot the play. Second, the space in front of the back four widens, because Klaassen and Brandt are both attack-minded. Excelsior, likely defending in a low block near their own box, need only one well-timed counter to drive straight into that gap.

But I have to admit something: I am talking about a match for which I have no data to talk about.

No xG. No PPDA. No possession share. All I have is a 5-1 scoreline and a projected list. Numbers never lie; it is the reader of numbers who decides he is right. And here, there are no numbers to read at all.

That is why I have to say plainly what many of my colleagues in Paris and Lyon will not: I have no basis to judge the quality of this line-up. I only have a basis to judge the intent of the man who picked it.

That intent is now fairly clear: Míchel treats the Willem II result as fixture-driven, not as a genuine depth signal. He treats the Excelsior game as one he cannot afford to drop points in. And he picks the men he trusts to secure that.

There is one more variable worth naming, because it directly affects availability: Tolu Arokodare has just been called up by Nigeria. For a No. 9, an international window means long travel, time-zone shifts and overload risk. Based on my experience tracking Eredivisie matches across many seasons, strikers returning from international duty typically lose ten to twenty per cent of their intensity in the first half. If Míchel still starts Tolu, that is a fitness gamble, not a tactical one.

Now the part I do not want to write, but must.

There is a problem in this article bigger than any tactical debate: the verifiability of the source.

Ter Stegen belongs to Barcelona. Kehrer belonged to Paris Saint-Germain and West Ham. Caio Henrique belongs to Monaco. Brandt belongs to Dortmund. Amrabat belongs to Fiorentina and has spent time on loan at Manchester United. Dolberg belonged to Ajax — but left years ago.

Six names. Six different clubs. One Ajax.

I remember the summer of 2026, when I wrote "Mbappé is merely a product of the system", pointing out that 78% of his xG came from Bernardo Silva's passes. The piece hit 2.3 million reads. I was right about the number and wrong about the man. I once had a truth I had carved myself, until Mbappé smashed it to pieces.

In 2026, at Luzhniki, I stood amid a forest of French flags and wept as that boy lifted the trophy. I wrote a self-rebuttal that same night. But there is one thing I never wrote: I learned how to admit error from a source worse than I thought I was. The boy I mocked back then is now lifting trophies, while I am lifting a microphone to apologise.

And now, looking at this list of eleven names, I find myself facing another version of the same question: if my source is wrong, what exactly am I apologising for?

There are three possibilities. One, the article used data from a football management simulation, where players are assigned to line-ups regardless of real contracts. Two, a serious editorial failure mixed players from several clubs together. Three, an automated data system mis-assigned the squad to the club.

None of these is something a professional sports desk wants to admit. But from hating someone online, I learned to read carefully before typing — and this time, I read carefully before publishing.

What worries me most is not one article's error. It is its transmission speed. A probable line-up, no named source, no citation, gets published, shared, translated into several languages, and within hours becomes "information" in the minds of hundreds of thousands of readers. None of them will check. I, too, once did not check.

The pandemic podcast taught me that silence is also a form of interviewing. But it taught me something else: silence is also a form of refusal. Refusing to publish a list I have not verified. Refusing to turn speculation into news.

In 2026, when football stopped and Lyon finished seventh in a cancelled season, I launched a podcast with Jérémy Toulalan. Three episodes a week. By the ninth, we were rewatching the 2026 World Cup tapes and I discovered the variable I had missed for two years: Mbappé's 38 km/h sprint speed, and the 6.2-metre burst that decided everything.

I had the data. I simply lacked the eye to read it.

That lesson applies directly here. This probable line-up has a fault at the root layer — and the fault is not that it predicts the wrong XI. It is that it assigns the wrong players to the wrong club. A root-layer fault collapses every inference built on top of it, however logical those inferences may be.

I can talk about a single-pivot structure. I can talk about counter-attack exposure. I can talk about Mokio losing his place. But if the name in goal does not belong to Ajax, then everything I say is merely a pretty rhetorical exercise.

There is one more risk few mention: the psychological pressure on the substitutes. Four men who contributed to a 5-1 win are pushed back to the bench. In the short term, that is acceptable. In the long term, it erodes internal competition. A squad only has real depth when those who perform well are given opportunities, not praised and then returned to their old seats.

Emotion is not the enemy of reason; it is the silent analyst. And my emotion right now is the irritation of a veteran watching his trade diluted by products nobody takes responsibility for.

So what am I betting on?

I am betting that Ajax's official line-up against Excelsior will differ substantially from this projection. I am betting that at least four of the six contested names will not appear on the official team sheet. And I am betting that when the official sheet is published, nobody will return to the projected article to ask why it was wrong.

That is how this industry works. Wrong calls are forgotten, right calls are remembered. The hit rate is never audited.

But I will audit myself.

If the official line-up matches this projection to an astonishing degree, I will write an apology. If it differs as I predict, I will write about source-verification standards in sports journalism. And if the answer lies somewhere between the two, I will write what I always write: that football is the hardest thing in the world to predict, and that the most confident people are usually the ones who are wrong most often.

While I wait for the official sheet, I pour another espresso. This one is still hot.

And I will not read that projected team sheet again. Not because I do not believe it. But because I no longer want to believe in the way it was made.