While in Belgrade, the player received a dream offer from Louis van Gaal's Ajax, reigning Dutch champions and Champions League finalists. Traveling to Amsterdam with his wife, along with the Serbian sports journalist Mile Vjetrović who was brought along for translation, Bogdanović met with van Gaal and was one of the guests of the club for its league derby match versus PSV Eindhoven on 22 December 1996 at the recently-opened Amsterdam Arena. Seeing it as a chance to finally come back to Europe, the twenty-six-year-old Yugoslav decided to sign for the Amsterdam club in late December 1996 without making them aware that he had already committed to JEF. After signing a preliminary agreement with Ajax, Bogdanović arrived at the Dutch team for a January 1997 trial that included joining their winter training in La Manga, Spain during the Eredivisie winter break. Bogdanović was hoping for a compensation agreement with JEF that would allow him to go stay with Ajax's talented squad featuring Edwin van der Sar, Danny Blind, Winston Bogarde, de Boer brothers (Frank and Ronald), Richard Witschge, Marc Overmars, Tijani Babangida, Jari Litmanen, and Patrick Kluivert, but the UEFA arbitration committee got involved and the twenty-six-year-old was forced to honour the contract he had signed in Japan. Unbeknownst to Bogdanović at the time, while training with Ajax in La Manga, he was noticed by the Atlético Madrid assistant coach Rešad Kunovac who was there on a scouting trip assessing the Dutch team, his club's next opponent at the upcoming Champions League quarterfinals.