Published on 28 August 2018.
Last Weekend, the Ajax youth started the season with their first official appearances. This means that this will also be the start of the second season of our ‘One to Watch’ serie.
Before we continue with the first ‘One to Watch’ of the 2018–2019 season, we would like to adress the way we will structure this series. The feedback from last season included a lot of requests for articles, about a ‘One to Watch’ player for example. We will be doing this sometimes from now on.
‘One to Watch’ #1 — Ryan Gravenberch
Ryan Gravenberch’s last year was incredible. He made his debut for Ajax U19 (15), was promoted to the U19’s (15), became the youngest player ever to score in the UEFA Youth League (15), trained with the first team (15) and became an U17 European Champion (15). If that wasn’t enough, he was named ‘Talent of De Toekomst 2018’, a prize Ajax awards to the best academy player, based on attitude, performances and development. On the same day he signed a three-year contract at Ajax. After a short holiday, he joined Ajax first team’s trainingcamp to Germany and only two weeks later he joined the first team on their trainingcamp to England.
Last week, we heard Gravenberch was in the U21’s squad for their game against FC Dordrecht. That on itself would have been noteworthy, but Gravenberch even started in that game. This made Gravenberch the youngest ever debutant for Ajax U21 in the First Division (Keuken Kampioen Divisie, in recent years known as Jupiler League) at 16 years and 3 months old, 6 months younger than Riechedly Bazoer (16 years, 9 months old) and 8 months younger than Matthijs de Ligt (16 years, 11 months old). Of course, this doesn’t guarantee that he will make it, it is just a statistic. But it shows us how fast Ryan Gravenberch’s development went, and still is going, this year.
Gravenberch played the whole 90 minutes and showed some of his class that night. To highlight one of his moves: just before halftime he eased past a Dordrecht player with a great run, in a way Frenkie de Jong can pass his opponents at times as well. It was a little sign of what we will see this season of him. It wouldn’t surprise us if Gravenberch will make his first team debut this season and if he will achieve that before december, he will be the youngest ever Ajax debutant. This record is currently held by Clarence Seedorf, who made his debut at 16 years and 7 months of age. It’s not completely impossible for Gravenberch to make his debt, since Ajax will play HVV Te Werve in the first Round of the Cup.
More to come…
