Real Madrid vs Ajax: Dutch made impossible, possible in most reinvigorating Champions League result in years

Ajax proved that, with a proper plan, and by approaching a game in the right brave way, you can still beat the biggest and wealthiest in the most wondrous of ways

There were many images that made such an impression at the Bernabeu on Tuesday, from Frenkie De Jong leaving Luka Modric on his backside to Sergio Ramos sat on the sideline recording a documentary, but perhaps the most pointed was that from behind Lasse Schone as he stepped up for that 72nd-minute free-kick.

From that angle, the intention was clear. The ambition was clear. There was just sheer will to try it, and actually do it.

It summed up the night, that saw perhaps the most reassuring and reinvigorating Champions League result in years as Ajax eliminated Real Madrid in resounding fashion. Like Schone's goal, it was spectacular.

It’s certainly the biggest upset in years, and maybe the greatest ever, in terms of the disparity of resources.

Because by now, we’ve all seen the figures, particularly those relating to vastly different finances of both clubs. There genuinely hasn’t been a case of a club of Ajax’s resources eliminating one of Madrid’s in the modern history of the competition. And while the Dutch club obviously have such an illustrious history, that just doesn’t translate into modern triumph in the way sheer cash does.

It goes even deeper than that, though.

Prior to Tuesday night, only six teams in 64 years of the European Cup had gone through after losing a first leg at home - with two of them, coincidentally and perhaps inspirationally, being from Ajax.

Prior to Tuesday night, Real Madrid were just the team that always came through in the Champions League, that just knew how to navigate the competition regardless of any storm around them.

Prior to Tuesday night, a result like this just didn’t seem possible. The recent brutal reality of the competition was that greater resources always won out, with that most represented by Madrid’s repeated wins.

In truth, it got wearying.

There was absolutely nothing wearying about Ajax, though.

They overcame all of that to not just beat the European champions, but completely overwhelm them and humiliate them.

Real Madrid were left humiliated at the Bernabeu (Getty Images)

The scale of the defeat was appropriately inverse to the scale of the differences between the sides.

Ajax played with an assurance and assertiveness that illustrated they knew they were the better team, a self-awareness that is all the more significant given their astonishing youth.

The reality is of course that this had been coming for some time.

In fact, one of the most deflating elements of Madrid’s recent domination of the Champions League is that they have so rarely been anything close to the best side in Europe. They were in that time only once the best team in Spain.

It often didn’t seem like they were even that good a team, relative to the quality available, but yet had somehow built a claim to be one of the greatest of all time because of a series of knockout wins.

Really, they just seemed to repeatedly prove the depressing truth that, if you’re one of the biggest clubs, hanging around enough and putting out the most expensive players can be sufficient to win the game's most prestigious trophy. They didn't even have a plan to speak of.

In that, they utterly summed up the super-club era.

No more.

They have instead become the punchline for the grand riposte to that.

Ajax proved that, with a proper plan, and by approaching a game in the right brave way, you can still beat the biggest and wealthiest in the most wondrous of ways.

That should be cherished, because it had become so genuinely rare at this level.

That is why it is important.

It will in some way only serve to reassert that brutal reality, since this Ajax will be stripped for parts in record time, with that process already having started through the sale of De Jong to Barcelona. Madrid will meanwhile go out and lavishly spend this summer.

But that makes this all the more important. It was a tie, really, that just didn’t seem possible in European football any more.

Ajax, however, just believed they could. They proved that with every moment, and every image.