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Ryan Babel and Gerrard’s handshake

March 1st, 2008 | By: Jan | 13 Comments »

Asked what he’s most proud of, Babel answered: “I’m proud that the players in the teams I play in involve me more and more. It wasn’t that long ago that team mates first checked out other options. And if there wasn’t any, they’d give me the ball. That was the case at Ajax and at Oranje.”

Last year, that changed. After a training session at Ajax, Henk ten Cate told him that he had faith in him. “That was important for me. And now, at Liverpool, I see the same.”

After Drenthe at Madrid, Ryan Babel is the youngest pro player playing at a European top club. Liverpool manager Benitez payed 17 Mio Euros for Babel, because he wanted more players who could take on opponents in a one-to-one situation.

Babel is still not a fixed asset in the Mersey-side squad but he did play 37 games, and is compared with a young John Barnes by the “Pool fans. Last week, against Internationale for the CL, the fans cheered him on every time he touched the ball.

“We have all these little rituals before the game. We play “You’ll never walk alone” in the dressing room before the match. And when we move to the pitch we all touch the “This is Anfield” board. I am not a real ritual man, so in the first weeks I sometimes forgot to do that. Immediately Steve Gerrard would signal that I needed to touch it. The rituals are important at Liverpool.”

Babel also gets a handshake of the skipper after the game. Even after a loss or an abysmal performance. “He does that to all the players, and if you played bad or missed a huge chance, he’s there for you. What a leader. I never played with someone who has that kind of passion.”

Babel still feels a bit of an outsider in Liverpool. “I won’t make a lot of English mates, I’m afraid. The culture is so different. I’m not a fish&chips or pub kind of guy. But when the team goes out for the night, I’m always there.”

Just like Dirk Kuyt, Babel and his girlfriend have a personal assistant and a team of professionals who support him. Kuyt played 179 fixtures without an injury. He has weekly treatments by a private physiotherapist, a haptonome and a paragnost. Babel employs the services of a sprint-coach, a techniques coach and a diet-coach. And Babel has a career planning that he manages with his dad. I started in the Ajax B-youth team. I saw my planning as a contract. And all the objectives we defined were met. Even my study-objectives.

“When you know your skills and your weaknesses, you can plan things. But you never know. I wasn’t planning on leaving Ajax so soon. I even sent Martin van Geel a text this summer that I really wanted jersey number 8. I wanted to leave after the EC. But a week later, I had number 19 at Liverpool.”

Robin van Persie is one of his best mates, and he sees the former Feyenoord winger regularly in London. “We talk a lot. About how to protect yourself. Robin can keep on talking about that. Strikers will always receive the first hits and Robin is an expert in seeing them coming. I tend to be the first one to hand out a cookie. From that moment on, defenders treat you with more respect.”

Tags: Group C, Liverpool, Oranje, Robin van Persie, Ryan Babel, The Netherlands

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Comments

By finnster01 | March 2nd, 2008 at 12:41 am

“I won’t make a lot of English mates, I’m afraid. The culture is so different. I’m not a fish&chips or pub kind of guy. But when the team goes out for the night, I’m always there.”

You don’t have to, in case you missed it. With the exception of Gerrard and Carragher, they are all foreigners, including the manager. And I am a Liverpool fan…

Glad to see Babel has matured and are finally seeing reality… I don’t remember JC ever having a staff of 10 working for him, but I may be mistaken about that and I am sure a proven EPL goalscorer like Kuyt and Babel must surely need every single of them…yeah right! These boys need to remember where they came from!!

What happened to the sport we love?

Posted from United States

By Jan | March 2nd, 2008 at 3:22 am

Yeah… Football has evolved. In the JC days, there were players who were obviously to chubby, now they all have six packs, they run 10 kms per game. Hell, JC smoked a cigarette during half time :-).

Posted from Australia

By tiju | March 2nd, 2008 at 6:20 am

babel wat is the main thing with this guy is playing unselfishly with above average pentrating skills with very good physical power and good brilliant assists.
only one negative point is some times bit lazy and some times playing with out feeling(i mean eagerness to win)
kuyt also(kuyt’s skill is ha ha ha)

By Marc | March 2nd, 2008 at 10:21 am

babel is doing great right now… but i doubt he ll have a spot this summer as left winger for oranje cuz robben is currently owning in real madrid. so many talented players in oranje that it seems give the 4-2-3-1 system that lots of talented players will be droped out or benched. the best oranje line up i can thnk of is this one:

———————————–van der saar——————————

———heitinga———–bouma——————matijsen———–drenthe

———————-de zeeuw——————–van bronckhorst———-

—–van persie——————van der vaart———————–robben

———————————-van nistelrooy—————————

with bench:
babel, huntelaar,sneijder, melchiot and seedorf.

Posted from Switzerland

By Lerkot | March 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 pm

Guess who got injured yesterday… tada… Arjen Robben.

By dirk v.d berg | March 2nd, 2008 at 12:22 pm

“The youngest pro playing at a top european club.” What about Bojan Krkic, Pato, Kroos, they’re a lot younger than Drenthe or Babel.

Posted from Canada

By finnster01 | March 2nd, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Babel scored, and was Man of the match today as L-pool beat Bolton. He is on a very good run of form at the moment. However, like most L-Pool players, he doesn’t get many consecutive starts (or even minutes) due to Rafa’s obsession with rotation…He looks very good though at the moment, and if he can keep that sort of form through to the Summer MvB has something to think about.

Other Dutch news from UK, Seedorf looks like he will be out against Arsenal on Tuesday in CL, whilst VanPersie has been included in the Arsenal squad (but will not start according to Wenger). He could see action as a sub though.

Posted from United States

By Jan | March 2nd, 2008 at 4:00 pm

Sorry Dirk, I meant youngest Dutch player of course…

Posted from Australia

By finnster01 | March 2nd, 2008 at 7:21 pm

I remember reading about JC and some of the other old characters of that Ajax team sometimes “warming up” sitting on the dressing room radiator and smoking a cigarette…

Glad to see the old shark has already started cleaning slate upstairs in the Board room! I can actually see him and MvB work well together. Maybe Ajax can bounce back on the international scene soon too? That would be nice to see and very good for Dutch soccer in general.

Posted from United States

By Jan | March 2nd, 2008 at 8:27 pm

JC used to smoke in the shower, with the likes of Piet Keizer. Van Basten smoked too when he still played (in Milan).

Posted from Australia

By Lerkot | March 2nd, 2008 at 9:42 pm

Frank Rijkaard smokes as well. Cigarettes and weed, actually.

By Jan | March 3rd, 2008 at 3:44 am

Good Dutch boy :-). We all love it :-))…

Posted from Australia

By ferenc | March 3rd, 2008 at 4:47 am

i like babel. he’s a very talented and nice guy. but unfortunately he’s better at liverpool than at oranje. actually robben was happy because he could have been injured like eduardo. the gest of the recre’s guy was horrible… (saturday frankie did his first tactical mistake of the season and unfortunately we payed for it - he rotated yaya toure and messi,and now real’s lead is five points again.)

unfortunately i’m not so sure that marco will do good for ajax.

Posted from Hungary