The Myth of the Ajax Youth Academy.

[pete 2,499]

Quote

Ajax FC Amsterdam are known as one of the most successful clubs in the world. They certainly were the top team in Europe in the early seventies where they won the European cup three years after each other. Over many years their youth academy has been acclaimed as the Salmon's nose of youth academy's. Clubs from all over the world visited to learn about this academy that taught total football from a young age right through every age group until finally ending up in the first team. When looking through a magnifying glass does the Ajax Academy really live up to the packaging or does it fall into the same mythology as the club name “Ajax” named after Ajax the Great, one of the greatest heroes of Greek mythology.

 

First of all, what is the criteria needed to give a club the title of having the best academy in Europe? The perfect academy would be and what Ajax are actually famous for is picking up players at a young age, say seven to ten year old from an amateur team, and coaching them through the age groups to the first team. The Cies Football Observatory placed Ajax at number 2 for producing academy players in Europe behind Partizan but  the Cies report give no consideration to the age or level a player joins the youth system. Therefore should the Ajax academy be given the acclaim they receive if the criteria is that their players are scouted at a young age from youth amateur teams. The fact is that Ajax produce very few players through their own youth ranks. Most of their successful first team players are bought in from other professional clubs from Holland and abroad between the age of fifteen to seventeen. It is far easier to spot a talent at fifteen rather than seven years of age. That does not make their academy great but means they are excellent at buying in older youth talent.

The Players list below is players who did actually come through the whole youth system and was taken from 2010 until August 2016. The list below shows: games played: minutes, Minutes for Holland and the price a player was sold on for.

 

 

 

 

 

In contrast for the same period Feynoord actually did far better with their own youth players almost doubling the amount of games played.

 

 

Ajax have revamped their academy set up and again won the best Netherlands Academy in 2017 for the first time since 2006. They have upped their yearly budget to more than eleven million Euro's in 2017. That sum goes to running the academy and also buying in players to coach to the first team.

 

Earlier winners of best Dutch Academy 
2016: AZ
2015: AZ
2014: Feyenoord
2013: Feyenoord
2012: Feyenoord
2011: Feyenoord
2010: De Graafschap
2009: De Graafschap
2008: FC Twente
2007: PSV
2006: Ajax
2005: Ajax
2004: Ajax

 

From their last game Ajax played only four players from their own academy:

Noussair Mazraoui, Matthijs de Ligt, Daley Blind and Donny van de Beek, the rest were all players bought in from other professional clubs. Their important players like Tadic, de Jong, Ziyech, Schöne and Dolberg were all bought in players

 

In all those years Ajax were nowhere near being the best academy in the Netherlands never mind in the world. I will repeat! What Ajax are good at is buying in youth players at an older age and selling them on for a fortune. Take Frenkie de Jonge who they bought for the princely sum of one Euro from Willem 2. Selling him on for eighty million euros to Barcelona knocks up a nice little profit although Willem 2 do have a reported ten precent sell on fee. Oh well seventy million is not to be sneered at either. What is also not mentioned is the millions Ajax have wasted in buying players who have only warmed a seat in the stand. I remember for one season they had a full squad sitting in the stand watching.

 

To be fair to Ajax, teams from England and the rest of Europe are doing to Ajax what they have been doing to other teams and buying away their youth talents at a young age. Unfortunately for teams like Ajax and Rangers it is becoming more difficult to hang on to young gifted players as we witnessed with our own Billy Gilmour being coaxed down to Chelsea to earn a miserly seventeen thousand pound a week at sixteen years of age. That is probably more than most of our first team players are earning.

 

While Ajax did bring through fantastic players in the past as Cruijff, Rijkaard, van Basten to name a few, and still have the odd one now and again the fact is their fantastic academy has been a myth now for many years. Just maybe Ajax the Great was not so great at all and just pure Dutch mythology.

I am putting this in the Rangers section because it is a much used quote when discussing our youth academy and Frankie also mentioned it on the podcast. I said I would explain myself for all my remarks about the Ajax academy.

[Rousseau 10,640]

Nonsense. Ajax have the best Academy in World Football.  

 

No--I always appreciated your views on this. 

 

I don't think your data is right, though. Klaasen signed for Everton for £24m, and a few players still play for both clubs (e.g. Veltman and Vilhena). 

 

I still think it's something we should be copying--obviously alongside developing the technical ability of our youngsters and the tactical ability. We should have a degree of financial muscle over teams in Scotland, but we should also be trying to muscle-in on other countries too, like the Scandinavian countries. 

[26th of foot 6,083]

Ancient history I know. The year we played Ajax in the Champions League, myself and a few Army buddies traveled to Amsterdam for five days. We lost 4-1, it didn't help that Gazza was red carded midway through the first half.

 

Anyways, it was the Anna Frank museum/house or a visit to the Ajax Academy. We opted for the latter, hugely impressive in scale and level of administration. The variations of pitches alone was breath taking, indoor or outdoor, full size, half size, penalty box size, ...... etc. The pitches went on forever. Every team, and it went down to Under Sevens had it's own specified coach and a team of part-time helpers in both the admin' and playing/coaching side. Accomodation was impressive too, designated dressing rooms and overnight provision for older lads. At the end of the tour, they presented a scale model of the same provision, replicated in South Africa.

 

We were most impressed.

 

Reference the derivation of Ajax's name, I thought everyone knew it was a homage to a popular scouring/cleaning powder? 

[JohnMc 2,754]

I've no particular dog in this fight but I do think you're being harsh on Ajax here. Feyonoord didn't make it to the Champion's League semi-final playing some sensational football whilst defeating Juventus and Barcelona along the way. That's what makes Ajax so appealing to old duffers like me who are hacked off how a handful of Spanish and English sides can simply buy anyone they want and dominate football. It's great to see a side we can realistically hope to emulate doing that. Also, when you add in former Ajax players like Eriksen, Alderweireld, and Vertoghen being in the side that put them out as a neutral you have to say as a club they're pretty impressive. I'm sure it pisses off some Dutch (and Scots apparently) but Ajax have a mystique about them, since the 70s they consistently produced world class footballers, even when they themselves weren't doing anything on the international stage, their alumni were. Plus that banner when they last played Celtic, clearly not fancying a 'special relationship' and letting them know it made me laugh. 

Edited May 24, 2019 by JohnMc

[pete 2,499]

3 hours ago, Rousseau said:

Nonsense. Ajax have the best Academy in World Football.  

 

No--I always appreciated your views on this. 

 

I don't think your data is right, though. Klaasen signed for Everton for £24m, and a few players still play for both clubs (e.g. Veltman and Vilhena). 

 

I still think it's something we should be copying--obviously alongside developing the technical ability of our youngsters and the tactical ability. We should have a degree of financial muscle over teams in Scotland, but we should also be trying to muscle-in on other countries too, like the Scandinavian countries. 

That is why they have no transfer value. It does not state who has left the club.

I will give you Klassen it was indeed 27 mill euros. Not really important on the point on order though. the point being that very few players actually come through the whole system or they have been scouted by another professional team first.

[buster. 5,199]

14 hours ago, JohnMc said:

I've no particular dog in this fight but I do think you're being harsh on Ajax here. Feyonoord didn't make it to the Champion's League semi-final playing some sensational football whilst defeating Juventus and Barcelona along the way. That's what makes Ajax so appealing to old duffers like me who are hacked off how a handful of Spanish and English sides can simply buy anyone they want and dominate football. It's great to see a side we can realistically hope to emulate doing that. Also, when you add in former Ajax players like Eriksen, Alderweireld, and Vertoghen being in the side that put them out as a neutral you have to say as a club they're pretty impressive. I'm sure it pisses off some Dutch (and Scots apparently) but Ajax have a mystique about them, since the 70s they consistently produced world class footballers, even when they themselves weren't doing anything on the international stage, their alumni were. Plus that banner when they last played Celtic, clearly not fancying a 'special relationship' and letting them know it made me laugh. 

Agreed

The first decade of being a fan tends to shape perception for the next 40 or 50 years

 

I think it fair to say that Cruyff beyond being one of the great footballers, went on to shape a great deal wrt the way football was coached and played. In such a way that gave a further and deeper kudos to his Ajax roots. 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 25, 2019 by buster.

[pete 2,499]

The story goes that Rinus Michels would go into the dressing room and give his tactical talk. After he left the dressing room Cruijff and Willem van Hanegem would get up and say forget that shit, this is the way we will play.

[pete 2,499]

Eriksen, Alderweireld, and Vertoghen are exactly perfect examples of my point. They had actually totally nothing to do with the Ajax youth system until Young Ajax(2nd team) but in the Cies method of judging youth academy's they count them in. That is good buying and not having a great youth academy.

[Malangsob 1,264]

I like our academy. I think they are producing some outstanding results. I think they will be the talk of Scotland if not Europe once we beat the scum for 55.