Eredivise 11/12 Thread

AZ- Ajax ends 1-1 after a match that was all over the place, 2nd half Simon Poulsen (danish left side mess) scored own goal due to Nicolas Lodeiro who came on just a minute before the goal. 8 Yellow cards were given, 6 for Ajax including C. Eriksen (Standing too close to a freekick and kicking the ball when it was taken, stupid but was buying time) it was very windy throughout and putting the ball for a freekick or goalkick wasn't easy.

On a different note Feyenoord lost 2-1 to VVV, with swedish star man John Guidetti out due to Flu (Transfermarkt)

Utrecht - PSV starting now, not gonna watch rather wanna see Arsenal - Man United

"And i keeeeep pooooooooosting by myself"

This weekend was a victory for FC Twente as the other 4 teams in the top 5 managed to draw (AZ, PSV & Ajax) or Lose (Feyenoord)

In the bottom half Excelsior got their 2nd win of the season against NAC, but doubtful that it will matter much. Vitesse managed to lose to NEC who also are in the bottom 9.

Next weeks big match is Feyenoord v Ajax, the other top team matches are as follows. PSV v Vitesse, Fc Twente v Fc Groningen & Roda JC v AZ. Ajax needs a win bad, as they are currently 5 points after AZ with just 16 rounds to go!

On a player note both De Jong brothers scored 2 goals in this week, Siem 2 against AZ in the cup loss Thursday and Luuk 2 of the 5 against RKC saturday evening. Eriksen landed 2 assists thursday and a rare yellow card Sunday both against AZ.

Bleep bloop.

AZ did the other top teams a big favor tonight by losing to Roda JC, not an easy away game but shouldn't lose. I didn't see the whole thing but their star talent Adam Maher went out at half time...

PSV won friday evening, while Twente & Ajax are playing tomorrow, Ajax against Feyenoord in De Klassiker.

Heard Altidore missed an easy chance in today's game.

Scuba Steve wrote:Heard Altidore missed an easy chance in today's game.

considering his good start with AZ he has been way off in a while now, while he earlier contributed a lot to AZ taking the lead in the league he has just been a joker card lately, and that with mostly flop turnouts. Back to square one it looks like. Still got 15 rounds, Cup and EL to turn it around though.

Guidetti hat-trick

Today, has been bad for Ajax, easy day for Guidetti, not much quality for the goals but he has been there and Ajax defense has not, given that 3 of the 4 best are injured, it's still very bad.



Although, not all of it was bad.

Guidetti has been brilliant this season.

That may be, but the transfer talk rumor mill got going on one man that has been having a great season so far, Luuk De Jong. The younger De Jong brother scored 3 of Twente's 4 against Fc Groningen yesterday which leaves Twente 2 points behind PSV with +2 GD.

Ajax on the other hand have 34, 7 points behind PSV and unless PSV and Twente slip up it will be very hard to get a repeat CL visit next year.

Muhkoo, have you followed FC Groningen? Tadic's ball control is out of this world, did you notice?

JK wrote:Muhkoo, have you followed FC Groningen? Tadic's ball control is out of this world, did you notice?

Honestly, no i haven't really ever since Enevoldsen got injured i haven't kept up with them that much. They sold out a bit and didn't look so good for this season. However i do know that he was very good last season and that Groningen fans and Serbians rated him very high.

Anyone know anything about Ajax youth Ouasim Bouy?

We just snapped him up and are about to put him in our Primavera squad.

Not a good start to the year with an even worse weekend for Ajax.

We dumped down to 6th place behind Feyenoord and Heerenveen who both won this week, after an embarrassing loss home to Utrecht 0-2, Ajax had to play with 3 "new" players taken from academy this season in defense as Vertonghen was suspended along with Boilesen, Van Der Wiel and Alderweireld being injured. But we still should be able to hold them back with attacking power.

Heerenveen won a 4-3 thriller with Roda JC on Friday, While Feyenoord beat NEC 2-0. Twente's match this week was canceled as well as AZ's match with ADO both due to snow and the very cold weather over Europe. PSV got a draw away at Heracles Almelo which can be a tough match due to Heracles artificial turf.


For Ajax im close to giving up, the title looks long gone and specially with the many injures we have left. Next weekend should see the return of Boilesen, and of course Vertonghen but that still leaves 4 major players out. (Van Der Wiel, Alderweireld, Sigthorsson & Boerrigter ). At the moment i have reduced my hopes for the season to 2 good matches against Manchester United and qualification for the Europa league, i would also be very surprised if Frank De Boer is the coach of Ajax by the end of this season, it would take a miracle i think.

Would you say your bad season was down to injuries? If so, why would you fire De Boer?

Rei Andros wrote:Would you say your bad season was down to injuries? If so, why would you fire De Boer?

Firing coaches isn't always down to logic you know. I'd say a lot of it is down to injuries but a complete failure for not making sure we have a striker to use in the team, Bulykin was brought in late in the summer but cannot play with Ajax or learn to, he is a big bulky box player with little technical ability or speed. So after Sigthorsson got severly injured we've been using attacking midfielders. That along with last years form of defense of keeping the ball haven't at all worked this year. While im not entirely sure if De Boer is to blame for that, he will surely take most of the blame. The team have tried to bring in academy players like they normally would but they haven't been ready for the long haul.

I wouldn't personally want De Boer fired but the players don't look motivated which can easily happen when so much seems to go against us with the many injuries and some of the crazy things that happened in December. (The Lyon 7-1 Victory and the AZ keeper attack where we were dominating unlike the other 2 games against AZ this year) along with a bad streak now, being out of the cup and a nasty loss to Feyenoord. Firing De Boer could help, but it could just as well backfire, Ajax have had too many coaches in the last many years, one problem being that a firing didn't always lead to a new and better beginning.

I don't really know, ill keep watching ofc and still look forward to going down there but i don't expect us to challenge Twente and PSV with the team we currently have.

AZ decided to toy with Ado Den Haag beating them 6-0 and signed back in with PSV at the top with 42 points, Twente is a game behind but with a win will equal those 42 points 5 ahead of Feyenoord and Heerenveen and 8 ahead of Ajax

The AZ Victory included a Hat-trick by Charlison Benschop and 2 from Altidore, it was also danish owngoal champion Simon Poulsen's 100th match for AZ.

ilJuventino wrote:Anyone know anything about Ajax youth Ouasim Bouy?

We just snapped him up and are about to put him in our Primavera squad.

Scored a goal on his debut the other day.

Looks like more trouble in the Buisness end of Ajax, as the board along with Johan Cruijff has "stepped" back, and Danny Blind has stepped down because of Van Gaal being un-hired through court. I have no idea what it means for the club more than an annoyance to the supporters that just want to see Ajax play the beautiful game, but hopefully it means that Danny Blind will take his son and GTFO, what else happenends probably won't matter right away but could change things for better or worse in the coming years.

Tomorrow Twente plays Heracles which should mean they get to go level with PSV and AZ until they play during the weekend as they also have home games against the bottom teams (Excelsior and De Graafschap respectively) Ajax play away vs NAC Breda while Feyenoord face Vitesse in a sub-top match.

Next week CL and most importantly Europa League time again.

Thank god it's over.

Slightly unrelated to Eredivise but maybe then again not.(Also i am fine chatting with myself in 1 thread, don't have to use Ajax thread also ;P ) Ajax A1 played against Barcelona's Youth Squad this Wendsday in the NextGen series, Champions League for Youth teams more or less.

Ajax sported their strongest setup including Ruben Ligeon and Davy Klassen who have had a few matches on the senior squad, but more importantly danish Viktor Fischer, offensive goalscoring midfielder, regarded as one of the biggest talents in last summers Euro 2011 u17 and U17 World cup a while after. He was picked up by Ajax last summer from FC Midtjylland and has been scoring several important goals for the A1 squad including 2 against Barcelona along with an assist.

Highlight Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WtHCjn5T41M

Entire Match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsNP22vPO9Q It's an interesting watch, 2 Youth squads with more or less the same base philosophy (Cruijff) implemented in the youth players with a few outside talents (like Viktor Fischer) of course its still a youth game, so there will be some dull moments and mistakes you wouldn't see if the 2 senior squads were playing. (Preferably not against each other that could end up being extremely boring with 1 team having the ball the entire game)

Highlights at 9:30PM on ESPN.

What happened to Serero anyway? Although I'm Dutch, I don't follow Ajax as closely as you, Muhkoo, do probably.

JK wrote:What happened to Serero anyway? Although I'm Dutch, I don't follow Ajax as closely as you, Muhkoo, do probably.

As i recall he had an injury, very much due to his size and strength, he is very agile and quick, with good ball control and ability, but is brushed off by good defenders very easily, but why he isn't really back yet i don't know, lot of injuries to key players whatever happened to him might have got lost in the stream. But we have a few players that looked very promising before the season began that are way off now, Ozbiliz for instance was on excellent form and he isn't even good enough for the team we are able to field now.

I rate Ozbiliz, though. I have no clue or whatsoever why Ebecillio is playing when you have a player like Ozbiliz on the bench (who has showed he can also play as a more than decent striker).

Serero is such a tricky little player, he's awesome. His dribbling is insane. Another top talent in my eyes, he'll become very good. Why he's left out is a mystery to me. I'll take a peak on an Ajax forum, see if I can get any info.

Incase you didn't know you should never take betting advice from me, i was 101% sure that FC Twente would take 3 points tonight and level with PSV and AZ, they lost 2-3 to Heracles Almelo and with that another silly 3 point lost this season.

Where would you rate Ajax's youth squad to other youth academies, worldwide?

Eriksen wrote:Where would you rate Ajax's youth squad to other youth academies, worldwide?

Despite the club going downhill compared to the recent glory days in the 90s and early 00s, it is still up there with some of the best obviously with Barcelona and some of the British ones are getting better, they have the big club names but don't have the same history for talent development it that Barcalona (which they got through Ajax and Cruijff) and Ajax do. What makes Ajax and Barcelona stand out more often that most others is that even if they don't make it to the first team there is still a very good chance they will be playing top flight football after. Which is one negative thing about the British ones that often, at least in the past if you didn't make it and weren't immediately picked up or moved to another club if you got the message that you weren't gonna be included for the next season there was a good chance that football career was to be shut down. A very big part of Ajax and Barcelona being so good is that they have a clear message from the youngest age they are allowed to take in players and they work with the same training the same techniques through all the ages through to the senior team.

I don't know that much worldwide about youth squads, there are some excellent academies run in the French speaking African nations, and obviously Brazil and Argentina has a huge talent development "scene" The Acadamies in Portugal are also very good. However how many of them can be directly traced back to Ajax and their ways Im unsure of, but a lot of modern talent development can be credited to Ajax "De Toekomst"

One example comes from Christian Eriksen and his father, who had visited Chelsea and some other clubs before coming to the conclusion that they were in the youth squad reasons for the wrong reasons, hell Eriksen wasn't deemed good enough for Chelsea because he wasn't "big" enough, as in they weren't willing to assign a proper physical trainer to their youth squads to prepare the youngsters for EPL if they weren't the "right" build. If one or two out of 15 players makes it to the first team in Chelsea, its a success. If 1 or 2 from Ajax in the A1 doesn't make it to Ajax or another top flight club, that whole year can just as easily be written off as a failure.

I am of course very interested to see how Ajax does against Liverpool's youth squad in the Nextgen series, they played Aston Villa's youth squad last year and in one match completely outplayed them while in the away game they got run over, likely because they were lacking several players to Ajax reserves and Ajax senior squad that week.

You'd have to know every other youth team around the world aswell. Pretty hard task. In fact, Feyenoord's youth is on a higher level than Ajax', after expert's research. Ajax is going to rebuild and probably give more attention to De Toekomst now, so they'll probably turn it around. Feyenoord's first eleven team exists out of like 8 or 9 players of their own academy. Better than Ajax' atm.

I saw the match, Muhkoo. Douglas is playing so much worse than last season nowadays, silly guy, thinks he's good and all. Twente's defending is their weak spot. De Jong scored both their goals. He's class, sheer class.

Muhkoo wrote:

Eriksen wrote:Where would you rate Ajax's youth squad to other youth academies, worldwide?

Despite the club going downhill compared to the recent glory days in the 90s and early 00s, it is still up there with some of the best obviously with Barcelona and some of the British ones are getting better, they have the big club names but don't have the same history for talent development it that Barcalona (which they got through Ajax and Cruijff) and Ajax do. What makes Ajax and Barcelona stand out more often that most others is that even if they don't make it to the first team there is still a very good chance they will be playing top flight football after. Which is one negative thing about the British ones that often, at least in the past if you didn't make it and weren't immediately picked up or moved to another club if you got the message that you weren't gonna be included for the next season there was a good chance that football career was to be shut down. A very big part of Ajax and Barcelona being so good is that they have a clear message from the youngest age they are allowed to take in players and they work with the same training the same techniques through all the ages through to the senior team.

I don't know that much worldwide about youth squads, there are some excellent academies run in the French speaking African nations, and obviously Brazil and Argentina has a huge talent development "scene" The Acadamies in Portugal are also very good. However how many of them can be directly traced back to Ajax and their ways Im unsure of, but a lot of modern talent development can be credited to Ajax "De Toekomst"

One example comes from Christian Eriksen and his father, who had visited Chelsea and some other clubs before coming to the conclusion that they were in the youth squad reasons for the wrong reasons, hell Eriksen wasn't deemed good enough for Chelsea because he wasn't "big" enough, as in they weren't willing to assign a proper physical trainer to their youth squads to prepare the youngsters for EPL if they weren't the "right" build. If one or two out of 15 players makes it to the first team in Chelsea, its a success. If 1 or 2 from Ajax in the A1 doesn't make it to Ajax or another top flight club, that whole year can just as easily be written off as a failure.

I am of course very interested to see how Ajax does against Liverpool's youth squad in the Nextgen series, they played Aston Villa's youth squad last year and in one match completely outplayed them while in the away game they got run over, likely because they were lacking several players to Ajax reserves and Ajax senior squad that week.

I was watching the Ajax - Barcelona match you posted earlier, and Ajax actually surprised me. I knew that they already had one of the best youth academies in the world, but I really enjoy the Dutch playstyle. The Germans and the Dutch are really paving the way for the future, in my opinion. The German U21 team is filled with future worldwide superstars, in my opinion.

JK wrote:You'd have to know every other youth team around the world aswell. Pretty hard task. In fact, Feyenoord's youth is on a higher level than Ajax', after expert's research. Ajax is going to rebuild and probably give more attention to De Toekomst now, so they'll probably turn it around. Feyenoord's first eleven team exists out of like 8 or 9 players of their own academy. Better than Ajax' atm.

I saw the match, Muhkoo. Douglas is playing so much worse than last season nowadays, silly guy, thinks he's good and all. Twente's defending is their weak spot. De Jong scored both their goals. He's class, sheer class.

Yea i have never thought Douglas was that well, he is getting replaced after summer with danish Andreas Bjelland. Don't know how it slipped my mind to post that Luuk De Jong scored 2 seeing as he has a lot of fans on this forum.

About Feyenoord and their youth team, they've always had good production, but its only now, with the addition of some very important outsiders that they are actually performing, overall i'd probably have to agree with the experts that they are doing it good, even better at the "top" youth level than Ajax are, but i honestly can't say much about them as they aren't that good at keeping their very best players, unlike Ajax who still really fight to keep them for a few years and ready them for professional football life, or indeed taking them to play the other top youth teams. Most of the teams in Eredivise have good youth teams yeah but it is something different for the players and the club to take them around Europe like the seniors, the "graduates" and the stars from the Academy get to do with their top clubs.

About the German Youth squad thing, its an entirely different system, much like the one that was implemented in Denmark around10 years ago, the German one is a bit older but extremely effective as its not just through the top clubs academies and the national squads but more or less on a nationwide level. I haven't taken much interest in it before but saw a program about the Danish one quite recently where they mention the inspiration from the Germans.

In Denmark its coined as "Den Røde Tråd" (The Red Thread) as a sort of symbol of that all national youth squads up to the A-Level team and the nationwide summer football schools have to try to work with the same playing system and basic skill-sets, inspiration which is taken from the Ajax mentality and system (4-3-3, defend by keeping the ball etc. ) Of course this also has an influence on the clubs as its in their best interest to work with the system that their best players who are called up for national teams have to work with for the next many years to come, and if they make it to a major club they might have to keep working with. In a way, i can reference Eriksen again as he has been playing with this system since before he was a teenager and now both a part of Ajax and the Danish National team is still very close to the system he has had since before anyone ever cared about a footballer from Middlefart.

While the system in Denmark never will produce the same kind of success the German one will in the years ahead due to the fact that they have 14 times as many people and well that would probably equal out to about 10 times as many registered football players, it means that not only is individual talent being worked with to produce star quality players like Eriksen or Özil but that all the players know how to work together and can fit together as a team even when you change them in and out due to form, injuries or just general replacements.