It's nice to be young.
David Klassen, Hakim Ziyech, 24; Amin Younis, 23; André Onana, Bertrand Traore, 21; Davidson Sanchez, 20; Caspar Dolberg, 19; Justin Kruyvit, 18; De Ligt, 17...
Of the 18 teams in the Eredivisie this season, the youthful Ajax have the youngest average first-team squad – 22.6 years old – and even in the Europa League, head coach Peter Bosse has never wavered in his trust in young talent.
On 3 May, at the Cruyff Arena, with goals from Traore (2 goals), Eunice and Dolberg, Ajax beat Lyon 4-1 at home and almost got tickets to the final in Solna, Sweden.
In this way, when Real Madrid and Juventus may meet again at the top of the Champions League after 19 years, the owner of the final venue, Ajax, also has a good chance to return to the European final after 21 years of absence. In the 1996 Champions League showdown, the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, after a regular 120-minute draw of 1-1, Ajax had to play a penalty shootout with the "Bianconeri". With Ajax conceding two penalties in succession, Juventus, which had Peruzzi, Lavanelli, Ferrara, Paul Sousa, Conte, Deschamps, Vialli and Del Piero, finally raised the Big Ears Cup under Lippi's maneuvering – the Young Guards' dream of defending the title was shattered in the most brutal way.
In those three seasons, Ajax's three consecutive Champions League results were: 1994-95, champion; 1995-96, runner-up; 1996-97, semi-final. Under the careful deployment of Louis van Gaal, a large number of talented young people have emerged in European football. When he lifted the Champions League trophy in 1995, Van der Sar and Litmanin were 24 years old, the De Boer brothers were 25 years old, Overmas, Davis and Rezig were 22 years old, Kluivert and Kanu were 18 years old, and Seedorf was 19 years old – as you can see, in the past 20 years, Ajax's youthful atmosphere has never changed, and the name of "Kruyvet" naturally has a heritage meaning.
Justin Kluivert has had a very busy two months, playing in the Dutch First Division, the Dutch Second Division (Ajax U-21), the Junior Champions League and the Europa League, and in March he scored the first goal of his career. In Ajax's big win over Lyon, Kluivert also came off the bench in the 79th minute, further lowering the age of the team's players. In fact, even counting only the starting lineup, Ajax's average age when he touched Lyon was only 22.4 years old – in the youngest starting lineup in this season's Europa League, Ajax can be ranked second this night, only the Belgian side Henk, who won away to Sassuolo on December 9 last year, has lined up an average of 20-year-olds to start 11.
Also as a cradle for the development of young players, Genk's starting lineup is also very young, but compared to Bos's Ajax, the Belgian team is still slightly inferior. You know, of the youngest 11 of the first 10 sets of the Europa League this season, 9 sets are from the youthful Ajax - 22.4 years old, 22.6 years old, 22.7 years old... What is the U-23 player policy? If the average age of the starter is more than 23 years old, I will lose!
Two years ago, the Centre for International Sports Research in Switzerland released data showing that Ajax has trained 77 players in Europe's 31 top leagues (playing for at least three seasons in the team between the ages of 15 and 21), ranking first among all professional teams in Europe.
It is said that when the Dutch talk about the Ajax Academy (7 to 19 years old, about 200 young players), they always use another exclusive term as a reference: de toekomst – "future", more or less.
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