In America, with its wide-open spaces and wide-open possibilities, we celebrate the "self-made athlete," honor effort and luck and let children seek their own course for as long as they can -- even when that means living with dreams that are unattainable and always were. The Dutch live in a cramped, soggy nation made possible only because they mastered the art of redirecting water. They are engineers with creative souls, experts at systems, infrastructure and putting scant resources to their best use. The construction of soccer players is another problem to be solved, and it's one they undertake with a characteristic lack of sentiment or illusion.
The first time I visited De Toekomst happened to coincide with the arrival of 21 new players -- 7- and 8-year-olds, mainly, all from Amsterdam and its vicinity -- who were spotted by scouts and identified as possible future professionals. As I came upon them, they were competing in a series of four-on-four games on a small, artificial-turf field with a wall around it, like a hockey rink, so that balls heading out of bounds bounced right back into play. It was late November and cold, with a biting wind howling off the North Sea, but the boys skittered about in only their lightweight jerseys and baggy shorts. Their shots on goal were taken with surprising force, which kept the coaches who were serving as goalkeepers flinching and shielding themselves in self-defense. The whole scene had a speeded-up, almost cartoonish feel to it, but I certainly didn't see anyone laughing.
After a series of these auditions, some players would be formally enrolled in the Ajax (pronounced EYE-ox) academy. A group of men standing near me looked on intently, clutching rosters that matched the players with their numbers. One man, Ronald de Jong, said: "I am never looking for a result -- for example, which boy is scoring the most goals or even who is running the fastest. That may be because of their size and stage of development. I want to notice how a boy runs. Is he on his forefeet, running lightly? Does he have creativity with the ball? Does he seem that he is really loving the game? I think these things are good at predicting how he'll be when he is older."
One player there was de Jong's discovery, an 8-year-old who, he said, had "talent that is off the charts." But if this boy were to be accepted into the academy, it would mean he had completed just the first of a succession of relentless challenges. Ajax puts young players into a competitive caldron, a culture of constant improvement in which they either survive and advance or are discarded. It is not what most would regard as a child-friendly environment, but it is one that sorts out the real prodigies -- those capable of playing at an elite international level -- from the merely gifted.
About 200 players train at De Toekomst at any given time, from ages 7 to 19. (All are male; Ajax has no girls' program.) Every year, some in each age group are told they cannot return the following year -- they are said to have been "sent away" -- and new prospects are enrolled in their place. And it is not just the children whose performances are assessed. Just before my second trip to Amsterdam in March, several longtime coaches were informed that they had not measured up and would be let go. One of them was the coach of a boy I had been following, Dylan Donaten Nieuwenhuys, a slightly built, soft-featured 15-year-old who began at Ajax when he was 7.
Dylan's father, Urvin Rooi, served as a sort of guide for me. Gregarious and opinionated, he introduced me to other parents, made sure I came inside for hot drinks at the cafe and even gave me lifts on his scooter from the training grounds back to the transit station. He was particularly useful in translating a culture that was nothing like I had ever seen in many years of reporting on American sports. When I observed that for all the seriousness of purpose at De Toekomst, I was surprised that the players did not practice more hours or play more games, Rooi said: "Of course, because they do not want to do anything to injure them or wear them out. They're capital. And what is the first thing a businessman does? He protects his capital."
When the boys start at the youth academy, Rooi said, they are attached to the ideal of Ajax, whose senior team packs in 50,000-plus fans for its home games and still occupies a mythic place in world soccer because of the innovative style it established in the 1960s -- a quick-passing, position-shifting offensive attack that became known as Total Football. "The little boys drink their tea out of Ajax cups," he said. "They sleep in Ajax pajamas under Ajax blankets." As spring approaches, he continued, they get nervous about whether they will be permitted to stay for another year. "This is when they sometimes start to get bad school grades. They don't sleep. They wet their pants."
Over time, though, the a
Talent factory helps create soccer stars, starting Age 7
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