There are what you might call grudge matches all across European football, such as Liverpool versus Real Madrid and Manchester United versus Bayern Munich. You probably wouldn’t rush to put Ajax and Chelsea into the same category, with the Dutch side and the London club not having met each other very often.
That is, at least in part, owing to the fact that when Ajax were dominating the European Cup in the 1970s, Chelsea had yet to enjoy the success that they did after the club was purchased by Roman Abramovich, whilst Chelsea Champions League wins came at a time when Ajax had dropped away somewhat.
The First Meeting
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The modern version of the Champions League is such that a club doesn’t need to have won their domestic league in order to make it into the competition. So it is that a Chelsea side that finished third in the Premier League in the 2018-2019 season travelled to the Johan Cruyff ArenA in the October of 2019 to take on Ajax in the group stage of Europe’s premier competition.
Hard as it might be to believe, that was actually the first time that the two teams had met competitively, with the game looking as though it was heading towards a 0-0 draw before Michy Batshuayi’s substitute appearance resulted in a 1-0 win for the Blues.
@footballlostfiles_ Throwback to this crazy game #chelsea #ajax #championsleague #footballhighlights #fyp ♬ original sound – FLF
A fortnight later and it couldn’t have been a different story. Frank Lampard was the Chelsea manager when Erik Ten Hag turned up with his Ajax side, this time seeing the two teams go head-to-head in a thriller that ended up finishing 4-4. Ajax, of course, had made it to the semi-final stage of the competition the previous year, but this time ended up dropping down to the Europa League at the end of the group stage, missing out on a knockout place by a single point to Chelsea.
For their part, the Blues were destroyed 7-1 on aggregate by a Bayern Munich side that would go on to lift the trophy at the end of the campaign.
Ajax Chelsea H2H Record
| Competition | Ajax Wins | Draws | Chelsea Wins | Ajax Goals | Chelsea Goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Champions League | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| Total | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 |
When it comes to the two teams going up against one another, there isn’t a huge amount of history to look at. Instead, the sides have met just three times competitively at the time of writing, with Chelsea emerging as the better of the two teams.
As well as the win in the group stage game during their first ever encounter, the Blues also ran out as winners in the October of 2025 when the teams met in the new-look Swiss system of the Champions League, defeating their Dutch opponents 5-1.