Diary of an internship at the Academy of Ajax: the final chapter

One of the main surprises of the past visiting of JUNIOR coaches in the Ajax academy happened in the end of this visit. The delegation of coaches was met by the legendary football player Sonny Silooy. When he was a football player, he spent 14 seasons in the Ajax shirt. Being on board he was repeatedly become by the champion of Holland and won Champions Cup. After retirement, Sonny became a coach and worked in the structure of Ajax in various positions.

Sonny Silooy began with a short story about his playing career and then moved on to immersion in the principles of the Academy. He explained in details how the selection to the academy is going what principles are used in scouting young players in the academy, and also paid special attention to the principles of behavior of players that all young footballers follow. By the way it is because of non-observance of these principles as Silooy told that the academy was forced to reject Quincy Promes whose behavior and failure to abide bydiscipline led to his expulsion. And even his football talent was not to be questioned, the principles are more important!

Following the next step the Ajax representatives and theJunior coaches  went to the academy fields again to watch the matches of the Ajax teams against their neighbors and rivals in the Dutch championship of different ages. Matches that ended by Ajax victories just proved the correctness of the principles, which exist in this academy. 

After watching the matches there was again a subsequent analysis and evaluation of what they saw, a Q&A with Sonny Silooy, and the most pleasant moment was the receipt of official graduation certificates from the Ajax football club proving that JUNIOR coaches were trained in the academy. Well, the final and one of the brightest parts of the internship were the visit of the match Ajax against PSV football club.

The fight ended with a score of 3:0 by Ajax, which lineups was consist of almost only their own Academy graduates.  Ajax won in front of the crowd of  54,000 fans as well as 30 JUNIOR coaches  who during the internship became loyal fans of Ajax.

Convinced that the principles of training of young players are workable, the representatives of the JUNIOR went back home, in order to comprehend and digest their knowledge, to use them already in their work in the JUNIOR football schools. We hope that these knowledge will bring the result and will be used in trainings very soon. Furthermore,  the coaches  being inspired by the last trip, will work even harder to develop and acquire new knowledge.