Thirty-Three Shots and a 2-2 Draw: The Ajax Paradox on an Excelsior Night

On a late September night at the Johan Cruyff ArenA, Ajax fired 33 shots at Stijn van Gassel's goal. When the final whistle blew, the score stood at 2-2. For a club seen as a contender for the Eredivisie title, dropping two points against Excelsior is worth noting. But something else is worth noting more: a team that took more than thirty shots and still could not win. That is the signature of a mismatch between the volume of chances and the efficiency of conversion. Over many years of watching football, I have learned that a scoreline is only the thinnest layer of sediment; to understand what truly happened, you have to dig beneath it.

I do not watch a match, I excavate it. And the first layer of earth to brush away is the number 33.

The context of an early-season night

This fixture took place in the early phase of the season, with the two sides occupying opposite positions. Excelsior came into the game seventh in the table, with 11 points from 7 matches — an average of roughly 1.57 points per game. For a club from Rotterdam, living in the shadow of Feyenoord within the city's football ecosystem, that is a start beyond expectation. Ajax, on the other hand, is the club expected to challenge for the title and a European place.

The timing of the match deserves to be placed on the scales. The fixture fell just before the end-of-September international break — a window that often produces "trap" games for big clubs, when focus is scattered by call-up schedules and injury anxiety. This is a noise variable that analysts routinely ignore when they look only at the final score. A big club entering a match with one eye on the break, or with a rotated lineup, can play below its true level without having lost any of its squad quality.

The central voice of this story is Alireza Jahanbakhsh, an Iranian international who has worn the shirts of Feyenoord and AZ Alkmaar. That a seasoned player, who has passed through several leading Dutch clubs, offers an assessment of Ajax lends his remarks a certain comparative weight. He is not talking about a single match; he is talking about many seasons he has witnessed and played against. That depth of experience is a valuable data source. But precisely for that reason, his remarks should also be read with a healthy skepticism.

Decoding thirty-three shots

Let us start with the number. 33 shots, 2 goals. Using raw data alone, the conversion rate lands at around 6%. That is an unusually low figure for a team that controlled the game to such a degree. But I must state the limits of this calculation clearly: it is derived, not provided. The original report offers no xG, no xGA, no PPDA. Without those metrics, we cannot distinguish between three entirely different scenarios.

Scenario one: goalkeeper van Gassel produced a masterclass. That the report names him specifically as the man facing 33 shots is usually a sign of a notable performance. Scenario two: Ajax's attack finished poorly, firing wildly inside the box. Scenario three: Ajax generated volume but of low quality, shots from distance, efforts blocked in a crowd.

The difference between these three scenarios completely determines how we assess Ajax's problem. If it is the third scenario, this is a structural problem in chance creation. If it is the first or second, this is merely an off-night — the kind every big club endures a few times a season. Without data, any hasty conclusion is an intellectual gamble. I refuse to place a bet before I have enough evidence.

In modern football, a goalkeeper facing more than thirty shots in a match often becomes the central figure of the story, even though he neither scores nor assists. The role of the man between the posts on nights like that is the role of the one holding back a result that should already have dissolved. If van Gassel truly had a big game, then Excelsior's 2-2 carries an individual imprint more than a systemic one — an important regression warning for the rounds ahead.

What is interesting is that Jahanbakhsh himself offered a clear tactical signal. He said Ajax "had difficulty with our high press," and suggested the hosts may have "underestimated" his side. That is a directional proposition worth noting, but it must be read for what it is: the assessment of a party with a direct interest — a man praising his own team's pressing. A player saying his side caused Ajax trouble may be entirely right, but it is also the natural thing he wants to say.

It is worth remembering that a high press is no longer a secret weapon. It has become a mainstream standard in modern football, adopted by hundreds of teams as a default response to possession-heavy sides. There is nothing revolutionary about a small club pressing a big one. What matters is the degree of execution: did that press cause genuine difficulty, or was it merely an effort that produced no result? With a 2-2 draw, the answer lies somewhere in between.

Excelsior's collective model

In terms of model, the Excelsior Jahanbakhsh describes is a homogeneous collective built on fitness and task discipline. He says head coach Ruben den Uil sets very high standards and demands much of his players; that results come from each individual completing his task, adding up to collective performance, reinforced by a superior fitness base. This is the familiar formula of small clubs that over-achieve: compensating for the talent gap with organization.

There is nothing revolutionary in that, and there does not need to be. It works in the short term. The problem lies in sustainability. A model built on fitness and high pressing intensity consumes enormous energy, and across the dozens of rounds of a season, that cost accumulates. When legs grow heavy, when fixtures pile up, the pressing that once troubled Ajax can become a burden for Excelsior itself.

Data does not lie, but the crowd does.

The most beautiful contradiction

And this is where I want to pause a little longer, because it holds the most beautiful contradiction of the whole story.

The original headline revolves around a remark by Jahanbakhsh: the Ajax he faced was the "best" he had come up against in years. That is a grand compliment. But place it beside the bare truth: that "best Ajax in years" had just drawn 2-2 at home against a side sitting seventh. On one side is an assessment of form and performance quality; on the other is the result. The two are pointing in opposite directions.

The first reading, generous: Jahanbakhsh is separating playing level from result. Ajax may have played dominant football, created countless chances, and simply lacked luck or sharpness in front of goal. In that case, his assessment is entirely coherent tactically. It also fits a truth: sometimes the team that plays the best is the team that does not win.

The second reading, skeptical: this is a remark with a media strategy behind it. When a player says "we just held the best Ajax in years to a draw," he simultaneously raises the value of the result his own team earned. Drawing with a great side is a far bigger achievement than drawing with an ordinary one. Praise for the opponent, in this case, is an indirect way of honouring oneself.

I do not think there is any conspiracy here. I think there is a healthy media instinct, and it deserves to be seen as such. But the data reader must distinguish clearly: "the best Ajax in years" is an opinion, not a verified assessment. It comes from a single source, in a single match, with no supporting data. A good opinion does not automatically become a fact simply because it is placed in a headline.

The crowd looks toward the light; I look down at the earth beneath.

There is a second paradox, more subtle. If Ajax truly is the "best in years," what does it say that they could not beat Excelsior? Either Ajax is good but inefficient, or the league's standard has fallen so low that such a team only stands level with a seventh-placed side. Neither reading is entirely comfortable for Ajax. The crowd usually stops at the compliment and ignores the implication that remains. That is exactly the moment when the data archaeologist must keep digging beneath.

What needs to be tracked

So what should we take from that late-September night?

For Ajax, this is a watch item, not yet a verdict. If over the next three to five matches the shot count stays high while goals stay out of sync, then the problem lies in finishing or chance quality — a fixable issue. If the shot count falls and results remain poor, that is a systemic problem, and far more serious. I need more data before concluding, and I will hold to that principle until I have enough evidence.

For Excelsior, 11 points from 7 matches is a genuinely strong start, but it is still a small sample. The season's big question is whether the fitness-and-collective-discipline model can hold across dozens of rounds. History shows that small clubs with blazing starts tend to return to the true value of their squads when winter arrives. That does not diminish the value of the points they now hold; it merely reminds us not to celebrate too quickly.

When the pitch falls silent, memory begins to dig.

As for the question of the "best Ajax in years" — I leave it as an open hypothesis. If true, we will see Ajax return over the coming months, with a markedly improved conversion rate. If false, that remark will quietly fade into oblivion, like thousands of other judgments uttered on a single night and remembered by no one come spring.

That is the nature of this work. You cannot know for certain. You can only record carefully, wait, and keep digging.