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

John Repp and Hank De Kooning were both Ajax Academy players, playing in the same position, but with very different styles, and finally the faster and sharper breakthrough John Repp was selected for the first team and has since soared to become a well-known first-line star in Dutch and European football.

As for Hank de Kooning, after a big blow, he left Ajax, and after a number of Dutch professional teams, he never showed his due potential, and finally depressed, retired early, transformed into an academy coach, and after several years of accumulation, became the youth director of the Dutch second division team Hamler.

On the contrary, John Repp, who had a brilliant career, took charge of a newly formed amateur team, Almere, after retiring from the game, and although he led the team all the way to promotion and almost entered the Eredivisie last season, he was still a cut short of Hamler.

More importantly, the academy, as one of Ajax's important youth partners, Hamler has a close cooperative relationship and personnel exchanges with Ajax every year, on the other hand, Almere, although he has the title of satellite club, but so far not even a player has entered the Ajax academy.

This made Hank DeKooning, who has always been angry and aggrieved in his career, very angry, and every time he meets John Repp, he always wants to overpower the other party in terms of momentum.

Naturally, this mindset has affected the players under him.

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After listening to Dick Van Poel's explanation, Yang Yang and the others suddenly realized in their hearts, and they all felt that the middle-aged fat man was really stingy, and his skills were not as good as others decades ago, and now they have to take revenge.

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

He still clearly remembers that Van Gaal's face was not particularly good when he mentioned John Repp, and he made no secret of his disdain for Ajax's legendary Cruyff, thinking that Cruyff was just a trickster.

"He was always attacking my tactics and discipline, but he always forgot one thing, his success was built on the foundation of a group of geniuses, but genius is not replicable, and my philosophy is to develop a group of talented ordinary people into talents through strict tactical discipline to build a strong overall team."

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

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

Perhaps, Van Gaal, like Hank de Kooning, has always had the knot in Cruyff's heart back then, 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 footballer is full of unpredictability, and who knows what Van Gaal would have been like if he had stayed at Ajax?

"That Vicente Weigier should be careful, if you can stay in the Ajax academy for five years, your strength should not be underestimated, and you must be careful when you play group matches in the afternoon." John Repp reminded.

Yang Yang knew in his heart, this guy was also unconvinced when he mentioned Emmanuelsen, obviously the two should be competitors.

Maybe many years from now, 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 determined.

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The Eredivisie schedule for the new season is out.

The first match was on 16 August, when Ajax were away to Vitesse.

The strength of this team is not strong, last season was a thrilling relegation, and it is also one of the relegation favorites this season, but in the first round of the new season, Ajax attaches great importance to it.

The team's warm-up results were good, in the most important Amsterdam invitational tournament, Ajax first drew 0-0 with Liverpool and then beat Inter Milan 3-0 to win the title, but the team's performance was not too good, especially in attack.

Ajax's attack has suffered somewhat since Donny van der Meyde's departure, with the strikers not performing well in several warm-up games, and Swedish centre-forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic having a summer transfer affair with Premier League side Southampton seems to have affected his form.

Wesley Sonk, the Belgian top scorer who has just moved from Belgium's Genk, will also need time to settle into the team, and the player who has spent six million euros for Ajax can play in the middle of the pitch and on the wing, is a highly anticipated scorer from all over the team.

After the Amsterdam invitational tournament, the Ajax first team also focused on staying at De Tokmostt to prepare for the new season, and after letting go of captain Zivu and main winger Van der Meyde, the team also made it clear that they would not let Ibrahimovic transfer.

After failing to convince the big teams to throw money at it, Ibrahimovic had no choice but to stay with the team.

As is customary for previous Talent Days, the first-team stars and coaches will attend the Talent Day in the afternoon, and it is believed that the whole of Detokmostt will be even more crowded by then.

But in the morning, it is more about the basic qualities of the players who enter the final selection.

Ajax's assessment items are basically the same as Almere's, but in the end, they are a Dutch giant, with deep pockets, and many equipment and equipment are not comparable to Almere at all.

For example, in the switchback sprint, Detokmoste has a dedicated track, from whistle to monitoring, the whole process is completed by machinery and equipment, and the data obtained is far more accurate than the coach's manual assessment.

This is the first time Yang Yang has experienced such tall training equipment, and he can't help but sprint faster under the freshness.

In addition to the more advanced equipment, Ajax's training is also noticeably more detailed.

As early as the warm-up, the coach of Ajax repeatedly reminded the players of the details of the warm-up, from the arrangement of the logo tube, to the details of the players' activities, and even to the leg lifting movements, etc., it can be said that they repeatedly told them in great detail, the purpose is to move all the joints to avoid injuries to the players in the next training.

Passing and receiving training is carried out in a 100-square-level square, in which five players stand in one corner and three players stand in one corner each, and various passing and receiving runs are practiced in a clockwise or counterclockwise fashion.

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

The ensuing routines were passing, crossing, and shooting, all similar to Almere's, but with significantly faster intensity and tempo, and more demanding from the sideline coach.

Academy coaches and scouts, including Patrick Laderu and Fred Arroyo, were all on the sidelines throughout the training process, and the performance of the players was recorded on the pitch at all times for final ratings.

The final training session of the morning was a four-on-four group game with the aim of training the players to press together and defend together.

This is also the philosophy of Ajax, the attack is the best defense, but the premise is that the ball must be grabbed first, so when defending, the whole team is pressing and pressing as a whole, and launching a counterattack on the spot after grabbing the ball.

In a rectangular area of 25 meters by 35 meters, eight players compete in four-on-four confrontations, which is not only very fast-paced, but also requires a high level of skill from the players, as well as the frequency of physical confrontations.

In a way, the more physically fit a player is, the more advantageous it is to fight in such a narrow area.

This can't help but remind Yang Yang of what Vicente Weigier said just now, Ajax's selection of materials 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 bad, Yang Yang doesn't understand, but this is Ajax's assessment criteria.

The four-on-four contest that lasted for five minutes was very intense, and after a session of training, everyone was already 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 would help him improve his strength if he honed in this kind of high-intensity training every day and played against a group of outstanding teammates.

A young player with similar talent and strength, in the Ajax academy and the Almere academy, whether it is progress or future development, is completely different, this is the gap in the platform.

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

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"How does it feel?"

As soon as Yang Yang stepped off the court, Dick Van Poel caught up with him and asked.

Although he also knows that Yang Yang will join Ajax no matter what his results are, he still hopes that Yang Yang will be angry.

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

"I've done my best." Yang Yang gasped and replied with a smile.

There is a good saying that money is a man's guts, but on the football field, strength is the guts of players.

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 level of Almere in the middle and upper reaches, and even play better if he is in good condition on the field.

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

"That's right, just do your best." Dick Van Poel also understands that Yang Yang's strength is not in these basic projects.

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

It was Henk Dimel, who was the last to come back, with a visibly dark face and a stomach full of anger.

When John Repp and Dick Van Poel asked with concern about his performances, the Almere hopeful scolded Vicente Weigill for deliberately framing him in the final four-on-four grouping, causing him to make several mistakes that he shouldn't have made.

But 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?" Weigill sneered.