Players Deserting Ajax

Filed in archive Transfer/Shmansfer on December 20, 2005

Source: Ajax.nl

Few teams in recent times have seen themselves being pulled apart like Ajax Amsterdam. Despite still being in the Champions League, as I mentioned here last week, Ajax are a club that will be selling, loaning or losing outright some of their best players, many raised in the club's storied youth system. Having already lost Mido, Wesley Sonck and Rafael Vander Vaart, the club appears to continue to leak promising players. Among the players rumored to leave within the next year are:

Player	Position	Rumored Destinations
Hatem Trabelsi	RB	Arsenal
Maxwell	D	Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus, Inter Milan
Nigel De Jong	CB	Manchester United, chelsea
Steven Pienaar	M	Borussia Dortmund (agreed), Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Celtic
Angelos Charisteas	F	Sunderland (loan)
Tomas Galasek	M	Manchester City
John Goossens	F	Chelsea
Jeffrey Sarpong	M	Chelsea

This is not a story of a usual clear-out of deadweights and overpriced moderate talents. Instead, Ajax are seeing their legacy picked apart by bigger, more well-funded teams.

However, they are not alone. For the last five or so years, the Dutch league has become a hot source of talented young players as a new generation of players raised on the technical Dutch system have matured and the older stars age out - much like the English and US national sides. PSV Eindhoven and AZ Alkmaar are two other sides that are turning into virtual feeders for the larger sides with case to spend.

The results of Ajax becoming a selling club are yet to be seen long term. It puts the team in the pressured position of having to excel without this young talent to earn revenue to buy in new stars. This process takes time, meaning we are likely to see Ajax on the wane for several years as new Dutch teams take over the spot of league leaders.