At Ajax, young stars stay with the club just long enough
AMSTERDAM • Last summer, seven of Ajax's brightest stars were summoned to a room at the Dutch club's training facility. Edwin van der Sar, the goalkeeper-turned-chief executive, and Marc Overmars, once a jet-heeled winger and now the Ajax sporting director, had a video to show them.
Its premise was simple. Each player was paired with an iconic figure from Ajax's illustrious history, one who shared a position, a nationality or (in one case) a bloodline:
- Goalkeeper Andre Onana had van der Sar.
- Forward Kasper Dolberg got Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
- Justin Kluivert was juxtaposed with his father, Patrick.
- Frenkie de Jong had Christian Eriksen.
- Matthijs de Ligt was compared to Barry Hulshoff, a defender from the all-conquering 1970s team.
The idea, van der Sar said, was to "show them how to become a legend at Ajax, and in Holland".
The film was designed to persuade the club's crown jewels, to resist the temptation to move to England, Spain or Italy for another year or so, to "stay with each other, to win prizes and trophies here and then make the next step".
The tactic worked. Six of them should feature when they host Real Madrid in the last 16 of the Champions League on Wednesday. De Ligt will marshal the defence. De Jong will orchestrate the attacks.
Only one will be absent: Kluivert resisted the emotional overture to follow in his father's footsteps. He refused to extend his contract and was sold to Roma.
At Ajax, they understand why he made that decision - the allure, for a teenager with a famous name, of forging his own path. But, when they mention Kluivert now, it is with a hint of regret, a tinge of frustration. Not because he left, but because he left so soon.
"If a player goes after just half a year in the first team, like Kluivert, we are disappointed," said Said Ouaali, director of De Toekomst, Ajax's famed youth academy.
THE AJAX WAY
We focus always on the individual. We don't think about age groups, like the Dutch federation or like other clubs.
SAID OUAALI, director of De Toekomst, the Ajax academy.
Last month, Ajax made another video. This time, it was for public consumption, posted on the club's social media channels. It was a little more than a minute long, but it showcased all of what Erik ten Hag, Ajax's manager, called de Jong's "special qualities". It was titled Frenkie Futuro and was released to celebrate the confirmation of the 21-year-old's move to Barcelona, set to be completed this summer.
De Jong is the shining light of the team, a player so promising that he has, more than once, been compared to Johan Cruyff himself.
Yet there was no regret at his departure. "Barcelona, enjoy the future, like we do," Ajax wrote on their official Twitter account.
Ten Hag might allow himself to wonder a little, he said, at what could happen if "I could keep them for two or three years", into their prime but that is it.
"I will be proud," he said. "The scouts who found them will be proud. Marc Overmars will be proud. Everyone will be."
This is what Ajax have always done. Since Cruyff himself left for Barcelona in 1973, they have churned out a stream of talent for others to enjoy: Johan Neeskens, Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard, Clarence Seedorf, Edgar Davids, the elder Kluivert, Wesley Sneijder, Rafael van der Vaart, Eriksen, Ibrahimovic, Jan Vertonghen, Luis Suarez.
The formula that has allowed it to do so hangs on the wall in ten Hag's office, opposite a series of black-and-white portraits of Rinus Michels, the mastermind of the great team of the 1970s; Cruyff, their star; and Louis van Gaal, the man who restored Ajax to the European pinnacle in the 1990s, with an almost entirely home-grown team.
Ten Hag laughs when he looks at that wall - "They set you a standard," he said, blowing out his cheeks. But he is serious when he discusses the Ajacied, a cross between a mission statement and a creed for the club.
These are the traits the club seek to instil in every player who wears their jersey, or who passes through De Toekomst, as well as their coaches and staff. There are 11 of them; this being Ajax, they are set out in a 4-3-3 formation. They range from taking responsibility and initiative to remaining disciplined and having fun.
The approach clearly works. But that is not to say it has not been adapted, altered, fine-tuned over the years. That process started in 2011 when Cruyff returned to a club that, in van der Sar's words, "did not feel like Ajax any more".
Cruyff and the cadre of former players he brought with him wanted not only to restore the focus on youth development, to shed highly paid, ageing players, but also to change the way Ajax worked.
The club recognised, too, they had to work faster. Players were no longer staying in the Eredivisie until they were 23 or 24; they were leaving at 20 or 21, if not earlier.
Their second team - Jong Ajax - who play in the second tier, no longer would be filled with senior players; now, most of their members are still in their teenage years.
"We had to speed up the process," ten Hag said. "They had to be good quicker."
De Jong and de Ligt might not have won a trophy but, by carrying Ajax to a meeting with Real in the last 16 of the Champions League, they have "given something back", as van der Sar put it.
When they - and possibly other members of the seven - depart Amsterdam Arena, they will go with the best wishes of the club, and then the whole system will start again.
That, after all, is Ajax's real gift: their ability not to produce one player, or one generation of them, but to keep on going. It is what makes players' leaving not only desirable but necessary.
"We have to give the path to the next one," van der Sar said.
"If players stay too long, the next one cannot play. The whole thing chokes."
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