MAY 7, 2017
Scores his first goal
for Ajax, in a 4-0
league victory over
Go Ahead Eagles.MAY 24, 2017
Comes on as a late
sub as Ajax lose
2-0 to Manchester
United in the Europa
League Final.inclined to run with the ball and go
off-piste tactically. These days, the 22-
year-old’s exceptional dribbling ability is
regarded as one of his great strengths.
But for those who called the shots at
Willem, it was a distinct liability.
“It was an awkward situation,” Heesen
explains. “On the one hand, Frenkie had
super qualities; on the other, his game
came with risks.
“We had doubts as to where such a
player should line up. It was a tricky one.”
Stripping back all the insights and
anecdotes, only one conclusion is valid:
De Jong and Streppel were simply not on
the same wavelength. The latter insistedthat the youngster would be best used
as either a static deep-lying controller
or a hard-running midfielder.
But De Jong wanted to be given
more playmaking freedom, the space to
slalom and invent – and generally do all
the things which makes him so special
today. The clash was inevitable, with
Streppel the conservative versus the
young gun with the avant-garde blood
running in his veins.
Maybe that’s why he only came good
at Ajax. There he could play with bravura
in a dominant team, rather than scrap it
out in a relegation dogfight with Willem.
If Streppel was unwilling to deploy the
fledgling De Jong, several other clubs
were keen to bring the kid on board.
In the spring of 2015, even before he
had made his debut for Willem, several
Eredivisie clubs were assiduously trackingFrenkie De Jong
Talent...in action for
Holland under-18s
against Bulgaria