Chapter 48: Platform Gap

This is a sad story that has been repeated over and over in professional teams around the world over the past few decades.

John Rep and Hank de Kooning are both Ajax youth players. The two play the same position, but their styles are completely different. In the end, John is faster and has a sharper breakthrough ability. Repp was selected into the first team, and since then he has soared into the sky, becoming a well-known first-line star in the Netherlands and even European football.

As for Hank de Kooning, after being hit hard, he left Ajax and went to many Dutch professional teams, but he still failed to show his due potential. In the end, he was unhappy and retired early. He transformed into a youth training coach. After several years of accumulation, he became the youth training director of the Dutch team Hamler.

On the contrary, after retiring, John Rip, who had a brilliant career, actually coached a newly formed amateur team Almere, although he led the team to upgrade all the way, and almost entered the Netherlands last season. League B, but it is still a little short of Hamler.

What is more important is the youth training. As one of Ajax's important youth training partners, Hamler has close cooperation and personnel exchanges with Ajax every year. On the other hand, Almere has a satellite club. The title, but so far not even a player has entered the Ajax youth academy.

This made Hank de Kooning, who has always been suffocated in his career, feel very proud. Every time he meets John Repp, he always wants to overwhelm the other party in terms of momentum.

This kind of thinking naturally also affects the players under him.

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After listening to Dick Van Poole's explanation, Yang Yang and others suddenly realized that they all felt that the middle-aged fat man was really stingy, and his skills were inferior to others decades ago, and now they have to take revenge.

But Yang Yang couldn't help but think of Van Gaal.

He still clearly remembered that Van Gaal didn't look very good when he mentioned John Repp, and he made no secret of his disdain for the legendary Ajax legend Cruyff, thinking that Cruyff was just a Just kidding.

"He's always attacking my tactics and discipline, but he always forgets one thing, his success is based on a group of geniuses, but geniuses cannot be copied, and my philosophy is through rigor The tactical discipline of cultivating a group of talented ordinary people into talents and creating a strong overall team."

It's hard to say which of these two legendary ideas is better or worse, and it's hard to judge the right and wrong.

But Yang Yang heard that the reason why Van Gaal could not enter the first team was because there was a world-famous legendary superstar in the Ajax first team, that is Cruyff.

Perhaps, Van Gaal, like Hank de Kooning, has always had the same feelings for Cruyff, but he is arrogant, not as superficial as Hank de Kooning, but he is sure in his bones Also very dissatisfied.

The career of a professional player is full of all kinds of unpredictability. Who knows if Van Gaal can stay at Ajax, what the final achievement will be?

"That Vicente Weigil should be more careful. He can stay in the Ajax youth academy for five years, and his strength must not be underestimated. You must be careful when you play the group match in the afternoon." John Rep reminded.

Yang Yang knew that this guy was unconvinced when he mentioned Emmanuel Nurson. Obviously, the two should be competitors.

Perhaps many years later, this will be a sad new story.

If you don't want to be Hank de Kooning, try to be John Repp.

Yang Yang's heart became more and more firm.

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The Eredivisie schedule for the new season is out.

The first game is on August 16, Ajax is away to Vidis.

The strength of this team is not strong. It was relegated last season and it is also one of the favorite teams for relegation this season. However, it is the first round of the new season, and Ajax attaches great importance to it.

The team's warm-up results were good. In the most important Amsterdam Invitational, Ajax first drew with Liverpool 0-0, and then defeated Inter Milan 3-0 to win the championship, but the team's performance was not too good. Well, especially on offense.

After Van der Meyde left, Ajax's offense was affected to some extent. In several warm-up games, the performance of the strikers was not good. The Swedish center Zlatan Ibrahimovic had a transfer in the summer, and he went with him. There have been rumours of an affair with Southampton in the Premier League, which seems to have affected his form.

Just transferred from Genk, Belgium, the top scorer Wesley Sonk also needs time to integrate into the team. This player has spent 6 million euros in Ajax and can play in the middle and side of the frontcourt. Lu is a scorer that the team is looking forward to very much.

After the Amsterdam Invitational, the Ajax first team also concentrated on staying in De Tokmost to prepare for the new season. After letting go of the captain Qiu and the main winger Van der Meade, the team also made it clear that they would not. Let Ibrahimovic go.

In the case of failing to convince the big teams to spend money, Ibrahimovic can only continue to stay in the team.

According to the past practice of talent day, the stars and coaches of the first team will participate in talent day activities in the afternoon.

But in the morning, it was more just an assessment of the basic qualities of the players who entered the final selection.

Ajax's assessment items are basically the same as Almere's, but in the end it is a giant team in the Netherlands, with a lot of money and a lot of equipment and equipment that Almere can't match at all.

For example, in a roundabout sprint, Detokmost has a dedicated track. From whistle blowing to monitoring, the entire process is completed by machinery and equipment, and the data obtained is far more accurate than the manual assessment by coaches.

This is the first time Yang Yang has experienced such a high-level training equipment. Feeling fresh, he can't help sprinting faster.

In addition to more advanced equipment, Ajax's training is also significantly more meticulous.

As early as the warm-up, the coach of Ajax repeatedly reminded the players about the details of the warm-up, from the arrangement of the logo tube, to the details of the players' activities, and even to the details of the leg lifts, etc. It is to move all joints to prevent players from getting injured in the next training.

The passing and receiving training is carried out in a square of 100 square meters, in which five players stand in one corner, and the other three players stand in each corner, and various passing and running trainings are carried out in a clockwise or counterclockwise manner.

This seems very simple. It is the same as Almere's daily training, but in fact, whether it is the rhythm of training or the speed of passing, receiving and running, it is obviously faster, and the requirements for players are also higher. One touch the ball, pass and run.

Subsequent routine exercises are training in passing, cross and shooting. The content is similar to Almere, but the intensity and rhythm are obviously faster, and the coaches on the sidelines are more demanding.

Throughout the training process, the academy coaches and scouts, including Patrick Radru and Fred Arroyo, were on the sidelines of the various training areas and recorded the performance of the players based on the situation on the field at any time for the final Out the assessment score.

The last training session in the morning was a four-on-four group game, which aimed to train the players to collectively press the defense together.

This is also Ajax's philosophy. Offense is the best defense, but the premise is that the ball must be grabbed first. Therefore, when defending, the entire team is pressed and pressed as a whole, and after grabbing the ball, they launch a counterattack on the spot.

In a rectangular area of ​​twenty-five meters by thirty-five meters, eight players played four-on-four confrontations. Not only was the rhythm very fast, but the technical requirements of the players were also very high, as well as the frequency of physical confrontation.

Even to a certain extent, the better the physical fitness of the player, the more advantageous the confrontation in this narrow range.

This also reminded Yang Yang of what Vicente Weigil said just now, that Ajax's selection of materials in recent years, especially the selection criteria of the second team and first team, is gradually increasing the weight of strength confrontation and physical fitness.

It's hard to say whether this trend is good or bad, Yang Yang doesn't understand, but this is the assessment standard of Ajax.

The four-on-four contest that lasted for five minutes was very intense. After one training session, everyone was out of breath.

Yang Yang is no exception. He has deeply experienced the training intensity of Ajax.

But it is said that this is far from meeting the training requirements of the first team.

He can fully imagine how much it will help him improve his strength if he hones in such high-intensity training every day and fights against a group of outstanding teammates?

A young player with similar talent and strength, in the Ajax youth training camp and the Almere youth training camp, whether it is progress or future development, is completely different. This is the gap between the platforms.

After realizing this level, Yang Yang became even more determined to gain a firm foothold in Ajax.

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"how do you feel?"

As soon as Yang Yang stepped off the court, Dick Vample caught up and asked with concern.

Although he also knew that Yang Yang would join Ajax regardless of his performance, he still hoped that Yang Yang would live up to his expectations.

At the very least, don't let Hank de Kooning look down on him.

"I have tried my best." Yang Yang panted and replied with a smile.

There is a saying that money is the courage of men, but on the football field, strength is the courage of players.

Yang Yang has always been self-aware, and after several months of arduous basic training, although the basic skills are still not satisfactory, he asked himself that he should be able to reach the level of the middle and upper reaches of Almere. Play better.

Judging from the training this morning, he was very excited and played well.

"Yes, just do your best." Dick Van Poole also understands that Yang Yang's advantage is not in these basic projects.

It didn't take long for Nick to finish the last training session, and when he came back, he also said that he played fairly well, but he was not very sure of his performance.

On the other hand, Henk Dimmel, who was the last to return, had a dark face and was angry.

While John Rip and Dick Van Poole asked concernedly about his performance, the Almere hopeful scolded Vicente Wergier for the final four-on-four group match. Deliberately framed him, causing him to make several mistakes that he should not have made.

However, this was heard by Vicente Weigil, who came back from behind.

"You don't say that your basic skills are too poor, who is to blame?" Wei Gil sneered and sneered.