Ajax are back.

That was the message reverberating around European football on Thursday night, as Ajax backed up their thrilling 4-1 first leg win over Lyon by showing the required resilience to eke out a 5-4 aggregate win and reach the Europa League final - their first in European competition for 21 years.

In the previous round, with an average age of just 22, Ajax produced a masterclass of attacking football in a 2-0 first leg win against Schalke that stirred memories of the all-conquering teams of years gone by. Dutch football expert Simon Kuper proclaimed it Ajax's best performance since 2003, when they last reached a European quarter-final and had Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wesley Sneijder and Rafael van der Vaart in the team.

Ajax are one of Europe's most successful and evocative clubs. Not only have won they won four European Cups, they possess a clear identity about how football should be played, passed down from Johan Cruyff to every future generation, enshrined in the 4-3-3 formation that has become part of the club's almost evangelical ideology.

They now stand on the brink of their first European trophy since 1995, when Patrick Kluivert, Edgar Davids and co. hoovered up the Champions League and Super Cup.