Ajax sorrowfully announces the deaths of their two players in tears.
AMSTERDAM — Matthijs de Ligt is aware that talk about his future and which European powerhouse would sign him, who is much sought after, is prevalent outside of Ajax.
“Am I irritated by the gossip? No. Discouraged? A tiny bit,” De Ligt says to ESPN. However, I don’t care if an article suggests where I should go or what I should do. It is completely irrelevant.”
At just 19 years old, he is already leading Ajax. As he speaks on a pitch at their training facility, he is enthusiastic about the future after being crowned a European Golden Boy in December. Even if he is happy, he is talked about throughout Europe. Photos of Frenkie de Jong and De Ligt appeared in the morning’s Mundo Deportivo with the heading “De Jong Sube… Y De Ligt Baja”; the Spanish publication conjectured that Barcelona was leading the race for De Jong but had lagged behind Juventus. There’s a new club every day: in the last week alone, Manchester United, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, and Napoli have all been suggested. (Thereafter, Barcelona said on Wednesday that De Jong had been signed as of July 1.)
It’s not unusual for clubs to be vying for Ajax’s skills. It all began with Johan Cruyff, who in 1973 relocated to Barcelona. Then there was the pursuit of Edwin van der Sar, Christian Eriksen, Wesley Sneijder, Patrick Kluivert, Marco van Basten, and so on. Their aptitude for acquiring unknown foreign talent and turning it into superstars, such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Luis Suarez, is just as outstanding as their academy. It’s De Ligt’s turn now.
Age is irrelevant at Ajax, so it’s easy to forget De Ligt is a youngster when you speak with him. A player will be given an opportunity to play with the first team if he is talented enough. It’s a location rooted in advancement. At their academy and training area, De Toekomst (“The Future”), they have a motto that the next challenge is just one pitch away.
One of the next stars that will likely wind up starring somewhere else next season is Matthijs de Ligt, who at the age of 19 is already the captain of Ajax.
Every team practices here, starting with the under-9s. Stretched out across 12 pitches, the area of greenery sits amidst highways and is located 5 kilometers away from Amsterdam’s historical hub, Dam Square. Tiny grandstands encircle the playing fields where the teams square off, and in the center is a concrete hub reminiscent of Ajax that serves as a changing, eating, and learning area for the athletes. Opportunities follow talent, and the academy annually selects one more future superstar to join the first squad.
After that, the topic of conversation shifts to regular Amsterdam life outside of the training grounds’ borders, and he learns that we have repeatedly been on the verge of being struck by reckless people on bicycles in the city center. With a laugh that makes his face look like it belongs to a teenager, he tells them that it must be tourists since the natives are too streetwise to almost kill a group of bewildered tourists. Then, as the topic of football comes up again, he talks about the face of a player who is valued at €70 million and all the perks that come with being one of the top young players in the world.
“Everybody is saying something new and you realise the newspapers are always saying something as it has to be interesting for somebody,” adds De Ligt. Ajax will eventually sell De Jong, who is expected to leave in the summer, just like they did with De Ligt, but the players and the club are unaffected by rumors from outside the team. Ajax is so sure of their ability to develop another talent to fill the vacuum because of their high regard for their academy. Although losing a superstar is never ideal, the club is not going to fail at this point. It’s actually their business model: produce the stars of the future and sell them to finance the next wave, therefore creating a self-sustaining process.
