Ajax manager Francesco Farioli questioned for heavily rotated team selection policy

Ajax manager Francesco Farioli has been criticized for some of his team choices over the last few weeks. The Italian has dropped many of the players who play in European competition matches to the bench for the Eredivisie matches at the weekend so far this season. This worked adversely last weekend when the Amsterdammers lost to the newly promoted NAC Breda.

Farioli made eight changes to the team that beat Panathinaikos on penalties last Thursday in the UEFA Europa League third qualifying round for the match against NAC on Sunday. Only goalkeeper Remko Pasveer and defenders Josip Sutalo and Jorrel Hato kept their places in the side. The Amsterdammers were beaten by an injury-time winner from Jan van den Bergh.

"We are not yet at the level to play three matches of intensity in a row," Farioli told NOS after the loss, adding that he felt all eight players were not ready to start the match. He had defended his decision for heavy rotation a week earlier by pointing out that Ajax had a very bad injury and fitness record last season before his arrival and that this was one of the things he was doing to fix this.

NOS asked specialists from around the footballing world for their opinion on Farioli's comments, including exercise physiologist Adrie van Diemen. "It is very difficult for me to judge how good the condition of the Ajax players is. But gosh, eight players, that's quite a lot. Apparently, Farioli estimates the physical fitness so moderately that he says: with other, fresh footballers, it is better to execute the tactics," Van Diemen told NOS.

Other managers like Gertjan Verbeek and Foppe de Haan criticized Farioli's decision. "But so much shuffling doesn't work when it comes to getting the structure and system ingrained," said former Heerenveen and Netherlands under 21 manager de Haan (81), "Then they never really get used to each other."

The results for Farioli thus far have been mixed. The manager has a reputation for conceding few goals, but his teams also struggle to score, and this has proven to be the case at Ajax, too. His side has scored seven goals thus far this season, three of those coming in one game while conceding four goals.

These issues will be parked for a week as Ajax has been given a weekend off by the Dutch Football Association, the KNVB, to focus on their European campaign. They face Jagiellonia Bialystok in the playoff qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League on Thursday in Poland.

The Amsterdam club announced on Wednesday it reached a deal with Italian club Juventus over defender Daniele Rugani. The 30-year-old will play at Ajax on loan for this season.

Rugani was born and raised in Lucca, Italy, just 35 minutes from Farioli’s hometown of Barga. His entire career has been under contract with Juventus, though he has mainly played on loan for Empoli, Cagliari, and Rennes.

“With Rugani, we are bringing in a player who has years of experience in one of the top European leagues. He is an intelligent, tall defender who is strong in duels. His arrival provides an experience boost for our squad and relatively young defense. This way, the team will be more balanced,” said Ajax Technical Director Alex Kroes in a statement.