@AjaxYA’s article for The Scouted Hub.
As you may know, the Academy of Ajax is named ‘De Toekomst’, which literally translates to ‘The Future’. It’s a symbolic name, a name for something Ajax is recognised for — the constant stream of youth players migrating to the first team.
Ajax’s style of play is also something they’re renowned for. This season, their offensive game with high pressure has been successful in Europe’s biggest competition, the Champions League. For the first time in a few years, Ajax is competing for three titles — though winning the Champions League, despite the side just two games away from the final, would still be an extraordinary achievement.
The squad includes a plethora of academy players and budding talents who’ve made a particularly good impression this season — fascinating and enthralling football fans globally.
Former Ajax players
Currently there are many former players at Ajax in various positions. The best known of these are of course Marc Overmars (Director of Player Policy) and Edwin van der Sar (Technical Director). When Marcel Keizer was fired, among others, Dennis Bergkamp was suspended from his job.
Something Cruyff had implemented was the Technical Heart, but that worked less and less efficiently. A split occurred in the TH and no or wrong decisions were made. With the departure of Bergkamp, all noses were heading in the same direction, resulting in a strong squad and attractive football. Other former players who hold a position are, for example, John Heitinga (Coach Ajax U19), Michael Reiziger (Ajax U21) and Winston Bogarde (Ajax U21 Assistant and Individual Defending Coach). Former players have a lot of experience as a football professional and can help and advise young talents. The disadvantage is that they fill in an important position and are quite inexperienced in it. They often get the time and follow a path to develop themselves to get more experience. Recently, there have been more and more comments about if these coaches are good enough for these important positions. Is it smart to lead an inexperienced trainer over the highest youth team(s)?
Promotion
Something that Ajax has been applying more and more often in recent years is promote talents to higher teams. If they need a new incentive or if they need to be challenged more, they will be promoted to a higher team (sometimes two). The current 2002–2004 generation is incredibly talented. From these generations there are a lot talents promoted early. Some were already placed one team higher at the start of the season and then started training more often halfway through the season with one team higher. In the academy, player development is more important than the results, which is something Johan Cruyff has always indicated. This season, this is especially noticeable at Ajax U21, Ajax U17 and Ajax U16, where the results sometimes disappoint. Ajax U21 won the championship last season with a group of players who had been playing together in the Academy for a long time. It was a genuine team, something that poses a big difference with this season. This season, a whole bunch of talents have been promoted early, so the team often consists of very young talents, mixed with players who didn’t play in the first team. Ryan Gravenberch is already a starter, at the age of 16. It’s something great for such a young talent to gain professional experience in Dutch’ second division. Ajax U17 also has to deal with this. A number of very important players have promoted to the U19’s and only will come back to the U17’s for the top fixtures. This opens automatically doors for other talents and younger players, like a domino effect. From the 2003 group (Ajax U16 this season) a lot of talents already play in higher teams, because of that, the results sometimes disappoint.
Ajax also has big plans for renewing and expanding the academy. A mini-stadium will be built, a new campus and fields of various surfaces and sizes. It’s more or less the result of the ideas of Cruyff. In addition to promoting talents, trainers are also promoted to higher teams. That has happened for a while now. For example, the Ajax U9 head coach this season is the assistant coach of Ajax U17. They also continue to develop this way.
Scouting — Talent Days
Many talents are joining the Academy at a very young age. Ajax works together with amateur clubs spread around Amsterdam and in the Netherlands. Ajax scouts at these clubs as well. As a gesture of gratitude, Ajax often shares information and/or ideas about how something can be set up better in order to get a better Academy. The clubs (coaches or youth coordinators) also regularly come to De Toekomst for a lecture, course or youth tournament.
Something that also yields talents are the Ajax Talent Days. These are days that are organized a number of times a year to allow talents aged 6 to 10 to experience an Ajax training. They can also be selected for possible joining the Academy. The best-known example of an Ajacied scouted at the Talent Days is Rafael van der Vaart.
2002–2004 Generation
It was just mentioned earlier, the 2002–2004 generation. From the current 2002–2004 generation, many talents have been playing at Ajax from a very young age. To give some examples: Ryan Gravenberch, Brian Brobbey, Kenneth Taylor, Donny Warmerdam, Naci Ünüvar, Solomon Bonnah, Neraysho Kasanwirjo, Sontje Hansen, Hossein Zamani and Dillon Hoogewerf. A number of these guys have been playing together for a long time now. In the last few seasons, a lot of them has been promoted to higher teams. Almost all of these talents have made their debut for Ajax U19 already. Being promoted to higher teams is of course something nice, but what makes it even better is that most talents were or are key players of the U17’s at the age of 15 (or even 14!). They proved to be able to handle the level and were promoted once again. This has been the case with most of these talents for a few seasons now. They are almost reaching the end of the Academy and they come together again in a team (Ajax U19), only 2 or 3 years earlier than would be ‘usual’. Time after time they show that they can handle the level. It is something that makes this group unique.
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