super storm

Chapter 48 Platform Gap

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

John Repp and Hank de Kooning are both Ajax's youth players. They played the same position, but their styles were completely different. In the end, John Repp, who was faster and more capable of breaking through, was selected into the first team.

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

On the contrary, John Repp, who had a brilliant career, actually coached a newly formed amateur team Almere after retiring. Although he led the team to upgrade all the way and almost entered the Dutch second league last season, he was still a bit shorter than Hamler.

More importantly, youth training. As one of Ajax's important youth training partners, Hamler has a close cooperative relationship and personnel exchanges with Ajax every year. In contrast, Almere, although it has the title of a satellite club, has not even a single player entered the Ajax youth training camp.

This made Hank de Kooning, who has always been suffocated in his career, very proud. Every time he meets John Repp, he always wants to overwhelm him in momentum.

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

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

But Yang Yang couldn't help thinking of Van Gaal.

He still clearly remembers that when Van Gaal mentioned John Repp, his expression was not particularly good, and he even made no secret of his disdain for the legendary Ajax legend Cruyff, thinking that Cruyff was just playing tricks.

"He always criticizes my tactics and discipline, but he always forgets one thing. His success is based on a group of geniuses, but geniuses cannot be replicated. My philosophy is to cultivate a group of talented ordinary people into talents through rigorous tactics and discipline, and build a strong overall team."

It's hard to say which of these two legendary ideas is better, and it's also 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, and that was Cruyff.

Perhaps, like Hank de Kooning, Van Gaal has always had a heart knot with Cruyff, but he is arrogant and not superficial like Hank de Kooning, but he must be extremely unconvinced in his bones.

The career of a professional player is full of all kinds of unpredictability. Who knows what the final achievement would be if Van Gaal could stay in Ajax?

"That Vicente Weigel should pay attention. Being able to stay in the Ajax youth training camp for five years, his strength must not be underestimated. You must be careful when you play group matches in the afternoon." John Repp reminded.

Yang Yang knew in his heart that this guy was also unconvinced when he mentioned Emmanuel Sen. Obviously, the two should be competitors.

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

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

Yang Yang became more and more determined in his heart.

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The Eredivisie schedule for the new season is out.

The first game was on August [-]th, Ajax was away to Vidis.

The strength of this team is not strong. It was a thrilling relegation 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 results in the warm-up match were not bad. In the most important Amsterdam Invitational, Ajax first drew [-]-[-] with Liverpool and then defeated Inter Milan [-]-[-] to win the championship. However, the team's performance was not very good, especially on the offensive end.

After Van der Meyde left, Ajax's offense was affected. In several warm-up matches, the striker's performance was not good. Swedish center Zlatan Ibrahimovic had a transfer in the summer and had a scandal with Southampton in the Premier League. This seems to have affected his state.

Just transferred from Genk, Belgium, top scorer Wesley Sonck also needs time to integrate into the team. This player spent 600 million euros for Ajax. He can play in the middle of the frontcourt and on the side.

After the Amsterdam Invitational, the Ajax first team also focused on staying in De Tokmoorster to prepare for the new season. After letting go of captain Qiwu and main winger Van der Meyer, the team also made it clear that they would not let Zlatan Ibrahimovic transfer.

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

According to the previous practice of genius days, first-team stars and coaches will participate in the genius day activities in the afternoon. I believe that the whole De Tokmoster will be more overcrowded by then.

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 after all, it is a wealthy Dutch team with a lot of money and equipment, and many equipment and equipment are not comparable to Almere.

For example, turning back and running sprints, De Tokmoster has a dedicated runway. From whistle blowing to monitoring, the entire process is completed by machinery and equipment, and the data obtained are far more accurate than the manual assessment of the coach.

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

In addition to more advanced equipment, Ajax's training is obviously more detailed.

As early as the warm-up, the Ajax coach repeatedly reminded the players of the details of the warm-up, from the layout of the sign tubes to the details of the players’ activities, and even to the details of leg raising.

Passing and catching training is carried out in a [-]-square-meter square, in which five players stand at one corner, and the other three players stand at each corner, and various passing and running trainings are performed in a clockwise or counterclockwise manner.

This also looks very simple, just like Almere's daily training, but in fact, whether it is the rhythm of training or the speed of passing and running, it is obviously faster, and the requirements for players are also higher. They all touch the ball with one foot, pass and run.

Subsequent routine practice is training in passing, crossing and shooting. The content is similar to that of Almere, but the intensity and rhythm are obviously faster, and the requirements of the coach on the sidelines are also higher.

Throughout the training process, youth training coaches and scouts, including Patrick Ladrew and Fred Arroyo, all watched from the sidelines in each training area, and recorded the performance of the players according to the situation on the field at any time, so as to give the final evaluation score.

The last training session in the morning is a four-on-four group game, the purpose of which is to train players to collectively press and defend.

This is also Ajax's philosophy, offense is the best defense, but the premise is that the ball must be grabbed first, so when defending, the whole team presses up as a whole and launches a counterattack on the spot after grabbing the ball.

In a rectangular area of ​​25 meters by 35 meters, eight players engage in four-on-four confrontation. Not only is the rhythm very fast, but the technical requirements for the players are also very high, and there are also frequent physical confrontations.

Even to a certain extent, the better the physical fitness of the player, the more advantageous it is to confront in such a narrow range.

This can't help but remind Yang Yang of what Vicente Weigel said just now. Ajax's selection of talents in recent years, especially the selection criteria of the second team and the first team, is gradually increasing the weight of strength confrontation and physical fitness.

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

The four-on-four competition lasted for 5 minutes, and the intensity was very high. After training in one session, everyone was out of breath.

Yang Yang is no exception. He has a deep understanding of the intensity of Ajax's training.

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 hone in this kind of high-intensity training every day and fight 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, is completely different in terms of progress and future development. This is the platform gap.

After realizing this level, Yang Yang became 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 field, Dick Van Poole caught up with him and asked.

Although he also knows that Yang Yang will join Ajax no matter what his performance is, he still hopes that Yang Yang will strive for success.

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

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

There is a saying that money is a man's guts, but in football, strength is a player's guts.

Yang Yang has always been very self-aware, and after several months of arduous basic training, although the basic skills are still not satisfactory, he thinks that he should be able to reach the upper-middle level of Almere, and even if he is in good condition on the spot, he can even perform better.

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

"That's right, just try your best." Dick Van Poel also understood that Yang Yang's advantage does not lie in these basic projects.

Not long after, Nick also finished the last training session. When he came back, he also said that he performed well, but he was not very sure about his performance.

It was Henk Dimmel who came back last, with an obviously dark face and a full stomach.

When John Repp and Dick Van Poel asked about his performance with concern, the hopeful star of Almere yelled at Vicente Weigel, saying that the opponent deliberately framed him in the final four-on-four group confrontation, causing him to make several mistakes that should not have been made.

But these words were heard by Vicente Weigel who came back from behind.

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

(End of this chapter)