4 reasons why Ajax's defeat of Real Madrid is great for the UEFA Champions League

#2 It marks the return of Ajax to the elite of European football

Ajax haven't been amongst Europe's elite sides since their 1990's heyday

Few European sides have as storied a history as Ajax. The Amsterdam-based side have won the Dutch Eredivisie 33 times, the Champions League on 4 occasions, and they’ve been home to some of the greatest players of all time – the likes of Johan Cruyff, Dennis Bergkamp, Marco Van Basten, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Edgar Davids to name a handful. But recently, they’ve suffered in Europe.

They won the Champions League in 1994/95 and made it to the final in the following season, but since then, despite having some talented players, European success has been hard to come by. Dutch sides, in general, haven’t done well in the Champions League recently but Ajax, in particular, have struggled, and haven’t made it out of the group stages since 2005/06.

Now though, by dumping Real Madrid out and making the quarter-finals, Ajax are definitely back in the big time. And while the vultures are already circling around their best players – Frenkie de Jong is already going to Barcelona and an exit is rumored for Matthijs de Ligt – it’s great to see the Amsterdam club back amongst Europe’s elite. If they can hold onto most of their current squad – and add a couple more talented players to their ranks – this could become the norm rather than the exception. And as a favorite of the neutrals, nobody would complain about it.