The Ajax way works like a charm, so go and replicate it
YOU’VE GOT to admire the Ajax Amsterdam way. Watching the Dutch giants’ Champions League clash against Barcelona on Wednesday night, I couldn’t help but be impressed by just how young their team was.
And while they lost 2-0 thanks to that phenomenon who answers to the call of Lionel Messi, there was every reason for Frank de Boer’s ‘chickens’ to walk off the Amsterdam Arena pitch with their heads held high.
Ajax were very competent against the mighty Barca, their performance belying the fact that they only fielded two players over the age of 25, both of whom are yet to reach 30 – this against a side teeming with established veterans boasting accolades of no less a stature as the World Cup.
It is this belief in youth that has seen Ajax renowned the world over as a fountain of talent. Big European clubs are continuously scrambling to snap up the latest young star to be churned out by the Dutch side.
And one of those could be our very own Thulani Serero, who performed admirably on Wednesday. Former Ajax coach and now Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal is said to be a big admirer of the Bafana Bafana player and it might not be too long before the lad from Meadowlands trades the Amsterdam Arena for Old Trafford.
Serero looks ready to make the big jump to the tough English Premiership, the four years he has spent at Ajax having turned him into a much more confident player than he was when he left these shores clutching his trophies haul from the Absa Premiership end-of-season awards.
That Serero’s natural talent has been honed the way it has shouldn’t be surprising though – he is, after all, at Ajax.
This, lest you need reminding, is the very same club that saw in Benni McCarthy a rough diamond they polished into a scoring gem who went on to become South Africa’s all-time leading goal-getter.
That Aaron Mokoena not only captained Bafana for many years but also became our first member of Fifa’s Century Club as our most capped player had most to do with the grounding ‘Mbazo’ received at Ajax.
Currently, Steven Pienaar is our sole star representative in the English Premier League with Everton. Need I mention where ‘Schillo’ served his apprenticeship?
And these are but just the South African players groomed at Ajax. There have been many other players from Holland and different parts of the world who became superstars thanks to the Dutch side.
They have a working formula, do Ajax Amsterdam, and that they have shared it with us via Ajax Cape Town should only serve to help us find the answer to our problematic, if not non-existent, development programme.
All the above-mentioned players got to play for the Dutch giants via the Cape side, who continue to churn out young talent. In Rivaldo Coetzee, the
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Urban Warriors have released yet another potential star who will definitely go on to shine brightly should he make the move to Amsterdam. And like De Boer’s team, Roger de Sa’s starting XI always teems with young players.
It is pleasing that our senior national team coach Shakes Mashaba, unlike his immediate predecessor and many before him, doesn’t see a player’s age but rather his potential – hence the likes of Coetzee in the squad.
Now all we need is for our Premiership clubs to go a similar route and we will see the country’s potential talent being groomed into something that will help us to return to the top echelons of African football, our clubs consistently contesting the Caf Champions League and our national teams permanent features at the finals of all the continental competitions.