Ajax D1 won the Jany van der Veen tournament. Clubs involved were Bayer Leverkusen, KRC Genk, Club Brugge, Feyenoord, PSV, Willem II/RKC and Sparta Rotterdam. (Don't you just love how BS automatically copies the font that you're trying to copy paste..)
Apparently Vertonghen has played in the second half of the season, on average, 2 meters further up the pitch than he did in the first season. Turns out that football is actually a game of distances. Who would have thought? Pressing further up means smaller spaces between players, means it's easier to defend and it means it's easier to get a pass from player a to player b. Allowing the whole team and especially Vertonghen to play much better. Even Jan van Halst recognized it was because of Vertonghen and Anita that Ajax played so much better in the second half of the season. A little late perhaps, but I'm impressed one of so-called "experts" (lol) noticed! Another thing that I found interesting was in Cruijffs column. He has underlined another (blatantly obvious yet often overlooked or ignored) problem area: Translation: "Once again we notice how difficult it is to recognize talent. The transferperiod has arrived again and it is striking to see how many players are wanted by many clubs that have been sent away by Ajax or have never been noticed in Amsterdams youth football. Adam Maher is a good example of that, but also Yanic Wildschut and Luciano Narsingh, who's even being asked back. Except he just costs a couple of millions now. I mainly want to say that in the area of talent recognition and scouting there is still a lot of improvement possible. When a club had that in order, that would save millions."
Evander Sno has won the Gillette Pro ranking/Player of the year, they've just paid a visit to him in Amsterdam. Lots of talk about Ajax in that interview.
Ajax U15s, probably a mixture of C1 and C2 players will participate in the Canon Lion City Cup next month in Singapore. Other invited clubs are Manchester City, FC Porto & Boca Juniors + the U16 and U15 national youth squads from Singapore. Clubs were already announced back in April. Ajax, City, Porto and Boca (winter champions) are the recently crowned champions in their country. Nostradamus much? Apparently the draw has been made today and we're in a group with Singapore U16 and Porto.
Some interesting quotes from Maher Looks like he wants out and considers a move to another club in Holland a step-up. Looks like he's talking about Ajax. Looks like the thought of having to sell Eriksen after a good EC is not that bad after all. Maher is 18, he's a great investment.
People on other boards have suggested that we could/might as well sell Janssen to Vitesse for 2 mil and play with Eriksen, Maher and Anita next season. They say if Maher is less than 10 mil we'll be fools to not go for it. Vertonghen and VDW are off, so the funds will be there. Sigi/Siem Boerrigter/Aissati - Eriksen/Schone - Narsingh/Mickey Maher/Rits - Anita/Enoh Boilesen/Koppers - .../Blind - Alderweireld/Denswil - van Rhijn/Ligeon Cillessen/Vermeer
In Italy on holiday right now and the weather is great. I would rather pick up Moisander so we deal with the defensive issue. Maher is OK but a little on the slow side compared to Eriksen.
You don't need to worry because nobody would want him. he has maybe one more season before he really goes downhill
Why do we have to play Maher OR Eriksen? Why can't we play the two of them side by side? It would be a pleasant change to have three good midfielders for once
I think that's what HSS was saying. A midfield of Eriksen, Maher & Anita which would be pretty sweet...But I'm with Orange14. Lets worry about replacing Vertonghen first. We may be losing Aissati and Lodeiro but we have brought in Schone and have some promising young midfielders coming up. Bigger fish to fry so to speak.
Boilesen and Blind are both converted LB's. We know that they are actually CB's. Leaders they are not, but neither would the new man be as we've seen with Janssen. It's tricky, but Maher really is special though. Speaking of AZ, will getting Poulsen on a free perhaps be another solution? Poulsen/Koppers - Boilesen/Blind - Alderweireld/Denswil - van Rhijn/Ligeon I have more faith in Dijks, but Koppers did a hell of a job against Nani.
Get Viergever as well as Maher from AZ, we still have a coupon from them for taking MeH off their hands.
Johan will not like this, but a couple of Ajax sites are reporting that Ajax have plans of taking Chris David over from Twente. He's considered their best youth player and as most of you know was born in Amsterdam.
With Johan I meant the poster Neeskens. Congrats C1! After winning Division A earlier, they've now also beaten Division B winners PSV (with 3 - 1) and are now Dutch All-Region champions. Abdelbak Nouri, Vince Dekker, Donny van der Beek and Rubya Rugamana In other news, Ajax are in talks with Moisander, Narsingh and Poulsen.
It's been good times with the youth lately, and not only Ajax but international as well. Gotta love it. The guy who makes these awesome vids below is worth checking out. First the game at OT, we were already doing well but after that game there was this immense believe. Second the championship game, great stuff! It's been a messed up, awkward and at the same time an unbelievable satisfying season.
Rodgers rebuffs Reds "The Reds have a shortlist of as many as ten names, with Borussia Dortmund's Jurgen Klopp, Marseille's Didier Deschamp and Ajax's Frank de Boer among those reported to be potential candidates"