KLUIVERT TO KLUIVERT: SIX OF THE BEST FROM AJAX

Patrick Kluivert

At 18, he scored the winning goal for Ajax in the 1995 Uefa Champions League final. Two years later, he had moved to AC Milan, from where he swiftly went on to Barcelona to win the Primera Liga in 1999, and embellish his reputation as a ‘complete’ centreforward. Won 79 caps for the Netherlands, scoring 40 goals.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic Chose to join the Dutch giants aged 19 from Malmo in his native Sweden largely because of the club’s reputation for accelerating the development of young talents. He scored some breathtaking goals for the club, and won the first of his barely broken series of league titles with Ajax, going on to finish top of various leagues with Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, AC Milan, and Paris Saint-Germain. Spent two years at Manchester United before moving to Los Angeles Galaxy where he is making an immediate impact.

Wesley Sneijder Brilliant playmaker who inherited the fabled No 10 jersey at Ajax, where he came up through the youth system. Real Madrid paid what was in 2007 an eye-catching €27 million (Dh114.3m) for Sneijder. He won the Primera Liga with Madrid, and, on joining Inter Milan, won a Serie A title and the 2010 Champions League, starring for the Netherlands, for whom he holds the record for appearances, in that summer’s run to the World Cup final.

Luis Suarez

Suarez joined Groningen in Holland as a 19-year-old in 2006. Ajax snapped him up a year later. In three and a half seasons there, he turned into one of Europe’s most prolific scorers. Although there were disciplinary issues of the sort that would pepper his career, he flourished at the club and his 49 goals in 200910 attracting the attention of Liverpool, from where he joined Barcelona in 2014.

Christian Eriksen The Dane, following in the footsteps of compatriots Michael and Brian Laudrup, became an icon at Ajax in an era when they were losing some of their status in Europe. Eriksen’s subtle football and vision were a reminder of the club’s fine creators of the past. Inevitably, his talent outgrew the Eredivisie, but he patiently waited for what he felt was the right stage before moving to Tottenham Hotspur.

Justin Kluivert

The son of a celebrated father, Justin Kluivert, still 19, is very different sort of player than dad Patrick, who was himself the son of a Surinam international striker, Kenneth Kluivert. Justin is a small, pacy and exciting winger, who, like Patrick, reached a major European final with Ajax as a teenager, in his case the 2017 Europa League final against Manchester United. Already a Dutch international, he joined Roma this summer.