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Johan Cruijff, Marco van Basten, Dennis Bergkamp, Frank Rijkaard, Michael Laudrup, Johan Neeskens, Zlatan Ibrahimović.
Ronald Koeman, Patrick Kluivert, Ruud Krol, Arnold Mühren, Marc Overmars, Edwin van der Sar, Jaap Stam.
Clarence Seedorf, Wesley Sneijder, Frank de Boer, Luis Suárez, Rafael van der Vaart. Aaron Winter.
None of these run out at Aspmyra on Thursday.
But they could have done that, if Bodø/Glimt’s success had come a little earlier.
For this are world-famous football names through three generations, and among football’s biggest giants.
And they are just a handful of all the stars who have played for Ajax since the team broke through in international football in the early 70s.
At that time, they won the league winners’ cup (then the Champions League) three times in a row. They have four such victories in total. They have also won the Cup Winners’ Cup and the UEFA Cup.
That makes them only one of five teams to have won all three European Cups.
The others are Bayern Munich, Juventus, Chelsea and Manchester United.
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It is therefore a European football giant Bodø/Glimt will meet, without comparison the very biggest that has ever played at Aspmyra.
Admittedly, a wounded giant; this year’s series start is the team’s worst ever and none of us who were present at the Johan Cruijff Arena last Thursday were impressed by the team’s play.
But you should never underestimate a club like Ajax.
This is not the first time the team has been in crisis.
After two finals in the Cup Winners’ Cup in a row, the team was in 14th place in the domestic series in the autumn of 1989.
By then, coach Johan Cruijff had left for Barcelona and top scorer Marco van Basten had been sold to Milan.
Such a start to the season was unacceptable. The team fired four coaches during that autumn, before the entire club management eventually resigned.
Soon after, the police raided the club’s premises and charged the management with tax evasion. It ended in prison for one of them and large fines for Ajax.
The team was on the verge of bankruptcy, and at Christmas 1989 had so little money that it could not afford stamps. As a result, no Christmas cards were sent out that year.
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Nor did it work in Europe in the autumn of 1989.
During a home match against Austria Wien, the away team’s goalkeeper was hit by an iron bar thrown from the stands.
UEFA’s reaction was harsh: Ajax was banned from all European play for two years (later reduced to one), and then had to indefinitely play its home games at least 100 kilometers away from Amsterdam.
This is the club’s absolute rock bottom, but it quickly turned around.
The new management managed to lure successful coach Leo Beenhakker back from Spain, where he had won three league titles in a row with Real Madrid, and he reversed the trend.
From 14th place in the autumn of 1989, it ended with another series championship in the spring of 1990.
The following year it won silver, and it gave a new game in Europe in the autumn of 1991. But where were the home games to be played?
Ajax had to go begging, but no Dutch or Belgian city wanted a visit from Ajax fans. The match thus ended up in Düsseldorf.
Deeply humiliating for a club and a country that has always had a strained relationship with Germany.
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But no sooner was Ajax out in Europe again than another shock hit the team.
Leo Beenhakker quit abruptly to take over Real Madrid again, and the team was left with a completely unproven assistant coach.
A strange screw with a big ego and an extremely arrogant demeanor.
When he became head coach, he is said to have said to one of the club’s directors: Congratulations, you have now got the world’s best coach.
The man’s name was Louis van Gaal and he would prove to be a really good coach, if not the best in the world.
In the spring of 1992 Ajax won the UEFA Cup and in 1995 they won the Champions League by beating Milan 1-0 after Patrick Kluivert scored.
In the same period, Van Gaal’s Ajax won three league championships in a row, for the first time since the 1960s.
This whole story is told in one of the autumn episodes of the fantastic Swedish football podcast “When we were kings”.
It has also previously considered Bodø/Glimt’s success in 2020.
If you really want to get up for Thursday’s battle at Aspmyra, both episodes are recommended.
They are readily available online.
Both episodes also show how quickly things can turn around in football.
From relegation for Glimt to league gold three years later. From bankruptcy and ban for Ajax to European victory three years later.
Both episodes also show the importance a trainer can have; a Louis van Gaal, a Kjetil Knutsen.
As different as they are as trainers and people.
So clubs like Ajax and Bodø/Glimt have different requirements.
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Based on precisely the different assumptions, one would have thought Glimt was Ajax and vice versa during the 2-2 match in Amsterdam.
For long periods, Bodø/Glimt played its far more resourceful opponent.
The atmosphere at the Johan Cruijff Arena is always magical, but this time the magic mostly lasted until kick-off.
From there and for the next 90 minutes there was almost deafening silence from the home fans.
While 1,000 visiting Glimt fans sang, danced and could hardly believe what they saw.
A cheap penalty kick and an unnecessary equalizer in overtime gave the home fans their voice back, but the Dutch press afterwards agreed with the Glimt stand: Ajax were outplayed and humiliated.
That does not mean that the home game will be easy.
Glimt has suffered even more injuries, Ajax needs revenge and as history has shown time and time again; things change quickly in football.
But should Glimt manage to progress, it will be the greatest achievement in the club’s history.
Because then they will have knocked out of Europe the team of Johan Cruijff, Marco van Basten, Dennis Bergkamp and Frank Rijkaard.