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Ajax youth system still the best

July 13th, 2008 | By: Jan | 36 Comments »

There’s been quite some criticism on Ajax’ youth development. Johan Cruyff and Finnster two name just two (Finn, your name in one sentence with JC!!). I thought it would be good to shed some light.

Ajax’ has always been an example in the world for youth development. Their scouting and development team have given us (to name but a few): JC, Rep, Haan, Krol, Tahamata, Van Basten, Vanenburg, Rijkaard, Van ‘t Schip, Kieft, Winter, the Bros Witschge, the bros De Boer, Kluivert, Davids, Bergkamp, Menzo, Sar, Vaart, Sneijder, Heitinga and many many more…

According to JC and other experts, Ajax’ youth development is deteriorating. But is it?

Looking at the Oranje team of last EC, we learn that there were 6 former Ajax youth players in the team (Van der Sar, Boulahrouz, Ooijer, Heitinga, Sneijder and Van der Vaart), two Feyenoord talents (Gio and Van Persie) and one FC Groningen (Robben), one FC Utrecht youngster (Kuyt), one Willem2 player (Mathijsen) and one FC Den Bosch (Van Nistelrooy) player in the squad.

If we’d look at the players in the Eredivisie (and we won’t, I’m sorry), we would still see a massive number of players who once started at Ajax in teams like FC Twente, Heerenveen, NEC and many other clubs.

But…it is true, I still remember the days when Aad de Mos and later JC allowed players like Silooy, Vanenburg, Kieft, Rijkaard, Van Basten, Witschge, Winter, Van ‘t Schip and Oulida to make their debuts. It seems the last big wave of talents included Van der Vaart, Van der Gun, Van der Meyde, Sneijder and Heitinga. The youth development does seem to have dried up a bit.

But is it all the fault of the youth organization? Or is it the way the European market opened up? Arsenal scouts 15 year olds in Holland. Real Madrid signs Royston Drenthe who only played 15 games in Feyenoord 1. The playing field has changed. It’s very expensive nowadays for Dutch clubs to give contracts to every 15 year old to stop Wenger and co. to come and snatch them up.

Another problem is the way the money seems to flow to teams who qualify for the Champions League. In order to compete at that level, it’s logical that PSV, Feyenoord and Ajax buy players from elsewhere who can play along immediately instead of allowing youngster to grow into their roles.

Gerald Vanenburg, a sensation at 17 years old…

Ajax being a listed company doesn’t help either. And I don’t think the youth development organization was really behind that decision.

Still, Ajax is year in year out regarded as the best Youth Development club of Holland. Jan Olde Riekerink - the former Sparta player and younger brother of Edwin Olde Riekerink - is Ajax’ youth development manager since 2006. He was a youth trainer for Ajax, assisted Louis van Gaal and Jan Wouters in the 1990s with Ajax 1 and was head coach at Emmen and Genk (Belgium). He assisted Co Adriaanse at FC Porto before he came back to this position in Amsterdam. Olde Riekerink is fairly satisfied with the state of youth development. “We’re still the number one of the Netherlands. But, we do need to improve and modernize. You know how De Toekomst (The Future) is our home, but it does need some maintenance. We need to re-establish our identity and determine where we want to go. Once we have that, we can set benchmarks and milestones and define our strategy.”

Olde Riekerink took some bold steps in signing individual youth coaches, such as Wim Jonk and Simon Tahamata. “Although football is a team sport, there are individual talents that need specific coaching and guidance. We need to invest more time and effort in individual training. We also want to invest significantly in video-analysis. Marco worked with that with Oranje and we really feel we can use it at youth level as well. It helps if you can show young talents what they’re doing right and wrong.”

His other plans consist of implementing mental coaching, a new educational program and a facelift of the current accommodation. “This is our core, our soul if you want. You want the place where you spend most of your time to be immaculate.”

Jan Olde Riekerink wasn’t annoyed with all the criticism and negative attention “his” youth system copped recently. “I didn’t take it personal, no, because I only started a year and a half ago. The criticism was aimed at the last ten years, and although i worked here during that time I can’t feel guilty about all that’s been said. Some of the criticism is justified, but not all of it. It’s always easy to look back at things and point your finger. Some people seem to forget that pro football has changed a lot recently and then there’s the schism between the pro-division of Ajax and the actual club. That is also tough to balance out.”

Olde Riekerink feels supported by Marco van Basten, who decided against major changes in the organization. “The thing is, you can look at it from outside and say “where are the talents?” and conclude that we are doing a bad job. I wish it was that easy. It’s not…”

Unconfirmed news says Real Madrid - Calderon and Mijatovic - want to copy Ajax’ youth model. The Spanish club wants to sign an Ajax youth coach to become manager of Real Madrid Castilla, the B-side of Real Madrid. Ex Madrid star Michel is currently in charge, but the Real Madrid board wants to replace him by someone with Ajax blood in his veins. Since Wesley Sneijder is at Madrid, the Spanish club is overawed by Ajax’ youth system, in particular after discovering Wes’ younger bro Rodney. Real wanted to sign him too, but Wesley advised his brother against it.

Arsenal is another club that is currently copying elements from Ajax’ youth system and these trends seem to support Van Basten and Olde Riekerink in their strategy.

Tags: Ajax, Arsenal, Background stories, Dutch Eredivisie, Holland, Olde Riekerink, Oranje, Seedorf, Sneijder, Van Basten

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 36 comments.

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By Porchetta | July 14th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

Jess, take it from me, believe me, iam the most hated poster in the dutch blog unlike this Domeneco character.Holland deserved their win against us in all aspects, they had everything going for them, VDS made fabulous saves, our defenders were crapp, and we allowed u counter attacks and obviously, you had that luck of a first goal scored by RVN..in any case, gloating has to end here..Holland were HUMILIATED by Russia while the eventual champs, non europeans of Europe(Arabs) Spain inspite of all the possession had to rely upon the lottery of penalties to win against us..

Posted from Spain

By finnster01 | July 14th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

Oh dear, this guy is still kicking around? I am sure of the list of 100 unknown true “Italian” players such as Bosko Jankovic something good is going to come out of it. I am sure Bosko’s parents are Tuscany royalty too.

Posted from United States

By Bob | July 14th, 2008 at 4:54 pm

Great post, Jan, and timely for me on one sense. A company in the US called Eurosport sells all kinds of soccer stuff, including DVDs. I recently purchased a 6 DVD set called “Heroes of the Future: An Ajax Education” which I have watched and which is excellent! It is all about the development of young footballers at Ajax, and explains the Ajax theories of football and teaching in a way I have never seen before. The Ajax youth system seems to be alive and well. The questions to be asked are what number of talented youngsters are now available, will they stay with Ajax for a long time and how will Ajax maintain the youth pipeline into the future. These DVDs convince me that Ajax has lost nothing of its teaching skills and the ability to train young footballers. If Ajax is not the team of the past, it seems that such condition is not related to the youth system. Other theories expressed by other bloggers seem right to me. If Ajax still had all the current footballers it trained, it would be a tough team to beat.

Posted from United States

By Bob | July 14th, 2008 at 4:57 pm

The act of ignoring the ridiculous will save time and blog space.

Posted from United States

By Jan | July 14th, 2008 at 11:20 pm

Always interested to learn how other teams and clubs do. I liked the Atalanta bit… Don’t care too much about the blasting of Sneijder and Drenthe.\

@Dirk: Heerenveen didn’t develop Huntelaar and Alves… Heerenveen deserves compliments for their scouting, not so much their development. Huntelaar was developed at PSV until Hiddink - yep, the same - sent him away for being too slow

@Bob: can you post some more info on those dvd’s? I’d be very interested in those! And you did work with Rene Meulensteen right?

By Domeneco Pauttusso | July 15th, 2008 at 4:27 am

Ok Jan, tx for ur compliments..I will add another kid to the list whoose name u will hear in the future..
Emilio Benito Docente(18, Messina)This kid again is one for the future, he needs more time to mature than Anatoli Todorov, but once he is in his prime, he will be a top striker and he will usually get into the Italy squad when he is about 26/27. It is worth buying him and loaning him out for a few seasons would be a worthwhile investment. He can be found playing for Messina in the Italian Serie B. His price tag is usually around £275,000.

By Jan | July 15th, 2008 at 5:09 am

What’s the system exactly in Italy? I understood there is no youth competition in Italy and talented players at big clubs only train with the big names or have to play in the Serie B or C to gain experience. Is that true? Not a good thing, I’d say…

By Porchetta | July 15th, 2008 at 6:15 am

well Jan, i will just put in my two bit for your query…You are definately misinformed when you say that there is no youth competition in italia..we have been having prestigious talent scouting tournaments from ages…like 1)Tourneo Di Viareggio which is being played every season since 1949..The Torneo di Viareggio (English: Viareggio Tournament) is one of the most important youth football tournament in the world. It is held each year in Viareggio, Tuscany, and its surroundings starting from the Monday next to first Carnival Sunday to the Monday next the third Carnival Sunday. For this reason, it is also known as Coppa Carnevale
By year
Year Winner Runner-up
1949 AC Milan Lazio
1950 Sampdoria AS Roma
1951 Partizan Belgrade Sampdoria
1952 AC Milan Partizan Belgrade
1953 AC Milan Juventus
1954 Lanerossi Vicenza Juventus
1955 Lanerossi Vicenza Sampdoria
1956 Spartak Prague AC Milan
1957 AC Milan AS Roma
1958 Sampdoria Fiorentina
1959 AC Milan Partizan Belgrade
1960 AC Milan Dukla Prague
1961 Juventus Lanerossi Vicenza
1962 Inter Milan Fiorentina
1963 Sampdoria Bologna
1964 Dukla Prague Bologna
1965 Genoa Juventus
1966 Fiorentina Dukla Prague
1967 Bologna Fiorentina
1968 Dukla Prague Juventus
1969 Atalanta Napoli
1970 Dukla Prague AC Milan
1971 Inter Milan AC Milan
1972 Dukla Prague Inter Milan
1973 Fiorentina Bologna
1974 Fiorentina Lazio
1975 Napoli Lazio
1976 Dukla Prague AC Milan
1977 Sampdoria AC Milan
1978 Fiorentina AS Roma
1979 Fiorentina Perugia
1980 Dukla Prague Lazio
1981 AS Roma Ipswich Town
1982 Fiorentina Ipswich Town
1983 AS Roma Inter Milan
1984 Torino Napoli
1985 Torino AS Roma
1986 Inter Milan Sampdoria
1987 Torino Fiorentina
1988 Fiorentina Torino
1989 Torino AS Roma
1990 Cesena Napoli
1991 AS Roma Napoli
1992 Fiorentina AS Roma
1993 Atalanta AC Milan
1994 Juventus Fiorentina
1995 Torino Fiorentina
1996 Brescia Parma
1997 Bari Torino
1998 Torino Irineu
1999 AC Milan Varteks
2000 Empoli Fiorentina
2001 AC Milan Vitória Setúbal
2002 Inter Milan Torino
2003 Juventus Slavia Prague
2004 Juventus Empoli
2005 Juventus Genoa
2006 Juventud Juventus
2007 Genoa AS Roma
2008 Inter Milan Empoli
[edit] By club
Club Winners Runners-up Winning Years
Asim

Fiorentina 8 7 1966, 1973, 1974, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1988, 1992
AC Milan 8 6 1949, 1952, 1953, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1999, 2001
Torino 6 3 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1995, 1998
Dukla Prague 6 2 1964, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1976, 1980
Juventus 5 5 1961, 1994, 2003, 2004, 2005
Inter Milan 5 2 1962, 1971, 1986, 2002, 2008
Sampdoria 4 3 1950, 1958, 1963, 1977
AS Roma 3 7 1981, 1983, 1991
Genoa 2 1 1965, 2007
Lanerossi Vicenza 2 1 1954, 1955
Atalanta 2 - 1969, 1993
Napoli 1 4 1975
Bologna 1 3 1967
Empoli 1 2 2000
Partizan Belgrade 1 2 1951
Bari 1 - 1997
Brescia 1 - 1996
Cesena 1 - 1990
Juventud 1 - 2006
Spartak Prague 1 - 1956
Lazio - 4 -
Ipswich Town - 2 -
Irineu - 1 -
Parma - 1 -
Perugia - 1 -
Slavia Prague - 1 -
Varteks - 1 -
Vitória Setúbal - 1 -

2)CAMPIONATO NAZIONALE DANTE BARRETTI
3)COPPA ITALIA PRIMAVERA( ALMOST, ALMOST ALL OF OUR TALENTS EMERGE FROM THIS)
4)SUPERCOPPA PRIMAVERA

Posted from Spain

By Bart | July 15th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Do you really have to post so many stats, they are useless and boring. I don’t think anyone cares that Lanerossi Vicenza Sampdoria won in 1955. The stats don’t tell us anything important anyway. I bet that 98% of those young players that the other guy posted will not become the best players of the world.

Posted from Canada

By Bob | July 15th, 2008 at 12:05 pm

Jan, I did work at a seminar with Renee Meulensteen, who is now with Manchester United. It was 2004 and Man U was in New Jersey to have a match with AC Milan. I remember attending the practice sessions of both teams and thought that AC would destroy Man U, based on those sessions. Then, Man U prevailed in a great match attended by over 70,000 people at Giants Stadium.

The DVDs information is as follows: 6 disks–main title is “Heroes of the Future: the Ajax education”–produced by Armada Sports in conjunction with AFC Ajax Amsterdam–it is listed as an official Ajax product–distributed here in the US by Reedswain Soccer DVDs and Books–copyright date of 2007–Part 1, The Ajax Playing Style–Part 2, The Ajax Training Concept–Part 3, 7-12 years–Part 4, 12-15 years–Part 5, 15-18 years–Part 6, Bonus DVD (this one takes of tour of the Ajax facilities and has interviews with De Jong, Maduro and Babel, shows highlights of several players and then shows parts of an Ajax match from 2007). They are terrific videos and I plan to donate a set to the local soccer club. One issue, reminiscent of our emails regarding the KNVB and its “competence”, relates to the interviews on video 6. The entire set of videos allow a choice of language–English or Spanish. I, of course, select English and the entire video series is offered in English. EXCEPT, even though the interviewer asks DeJong, Maduro and Babel questions in English, their answers are all in Dutch! In other words, somebody dropped the ball (an American expression) when it came to editing the final disk. I think you will find them interesting.

Posted from United States

By Jan | July 15th, 2008 at 9:08 pm

That’s interesting stuff Bob, thanks for the description. Any youth coach in particular that struck you as interesting? Was Arnold Muhren in there or Aron Winter?

By Porchetta | July 16th, 2008 at 7:17 am

DELETED

And all subsequent Porchetta (and pseudonym) posts deleted too.

Daryl

Posted from Spain

By Caleb | July 16th, 2008 at 8:18 am

Bart - Just ignore him. He can’t even do simple addition properly (2008 - 1978 = 30, not 38) so it’s no surprise that he can’t form simple, non-biased, non-racist thoughts. Probably from his lack of education and royal tuscan blood.

Posted from Canada

By Caleb | July 16th, 2008 at 11:30 am

Hahahahaha! What a joke! Ignored.

Posted from Canada

By finnster01 | July 16th, 2008 at 11:41 am

Pope does not live in your country, infidel. He lives in the Vatican. You must be muslim.

Posted from United States

By Bob | July 16th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

Jan, I do not know the identity of the youth coaches shown in the DVDs. Based on ages, I do not think any of them were either Winter or Muhren.
Thanks for the update on Muelensteen. When I spoke with him, I chided him about his getting away from the Dutch theories of coaching and football, and adopting the English ways. He laughed and said, in Holland the Dutch believe their way is best, in England the English think their way is best. So, said Renee, I have the best of both worlds! He seems to be a great guy, and I wish him well in his new position–he deserves it! There is a great video produced by Man U, with Muelensteen teaching youngsters various aspects of football and using Man U players to demonstrate the techniques. van Nistelrooy was one of the player/demonstrators. Also, Muelensteen himself provided great demo’s of the various skills as well. Was he a top quality player in the Netherlands?

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier | July 16th, 2008 at 5:52 pm

@ porchetta
i’m not gallic french, nor european, or african. i’m not related to henry are makelele. i’m american of multiple ethnic backgrounds.
also vatican city is for any christians that follow the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

Posted from United States

By Jan | July 16th, 2008 at 9:11 pm

@Bob: good question actually… I don’t think he was. I’ll do some research.

I do know Wiel Coerver - who developed the Coerver method Meulensteen bases his work on - was a skilled player and a very successful coach. He won the UEFA cup with Feyenoord in 1974. He developed his method and some players became coaches based on that method. Meulensteen was one of the people who surfaced as a Coerver-follower… I’m not sure what his background is. I do know the KNVB never embraced Coerver because he was very critical on “Zeist” and that is normally enough to piss the suits off. He then moved to “under-developed” football countries, as did Meulensteen. I’m not referring to England here :-). Meulensteen worked in Saudi Arabia (?) for a while I believe.

By Caleb | July 17th, 2008 at 8:26 am

Jan - what is Zeist?

Posted from Canada

By finnster01 | July 17th, 2008 at 10:15 am

@Caleb;

from what I understand Zeist is a small town in Holland that hosts KNVB’s main training/development center. Quite a bit of controversy about it, especially by the bigger clubs.

Posted from United States

By Jan | July 17th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

Oops. Caleb sorry… Indeed, Zeist is the hometown of the KNVB and in Holland whenever the KNVB does something or says something, the street lingo is to say: “Did you hear what Zeist just said?”… In politics they’d say “Den Haag decided to blablabla…” (since the government seat is in Den Haag) etc etc…

By Bob | July 17th, 2008 at 8:17 pm

Jan, any idea how Zeist was chosen as the place to host the KNVB headquarters?

Posted from United States

By Jan | July 18th, 2008 at 1:37 am

No idea… Zeist is a posh village not too far from Utrecht, centrally located in the country. It’s close to where the Royal family lives (lived I should say…our current Queen resides mostly in Den Haag if I’m not mistaken) and a lot of the old blue-bloods lived in that area.

By finnster01 | July 18th, 2008 at 5:38 am

In other words, a small and convenient commute to work for the pompus KNVB brass

Posted from United States

By Caleb | July 18th, 2008 at 8:24 am

Thanks finnster and Jan, I learn something new everyday.

Posted from Canada

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