Chapter 213 Player Factory: Ajax
The plane went all the way north and soon entered the Netherlands, the country with the lowest altitude in the world-this lowland country composed of four constituent countries (the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten). A quarter of their land is less than 1 meter above sea level, and a quarter of their land is below the sea.
In the Netherlands, seawalls can be seen everywhere-if there is no seawall blocking the sea, most of the Netherlands will be submerged by the sea.
seawall, windmill, tulips.
This has almost become synonymous with the Netherlands.
The plane landed at Amsterdam Airport and then boarded the team's bus outside the airport.
Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. This largest city in the Netherlands was once the most important port in the world. In the era of sea coachmen, it even became the center of the world.
The bus has walked all the way through large and small bridges. These bridges were built on the dense canal network of Amsterdam-the historic Amsterdam canal network has witnessed the most glorious period in Dutch history.
But the players are not interested in the canal.
Jeffrey was very excited when he returned to his hometown.
"If I have time, I must invite everyone to see our flower fields! Although it is February, some early-opening tulip varieties have begun to bloom. Although the Netherlands is in the north of England, we are not as good as England. Cold!" Jeffrey sat in his seat, turned his head and said loudly.
"Hey... Jeffrey, I don't want to see the tulips...I want to see the real Amsterdam flower..." Sol Campbell said loudly.
The players laughed, and Jeffrey's face was flushed.
The "Flower of Amsterdam" mentioned by Sol Campbell obviously refers to the famous red light district in Amsterdam...
"Hey, Saul, you have a family..." Gao Bo said with a smile.
The laughter in the bus got louder.
"I'm just looking..." Thor shrank his head.
"Boss...you are single..." Vardy feared that the world would not be chaotic.
"Jamie, you think the training is too loose, right?"
"No... I don't think so!" Vardy quickly denied.
There is a joyous atmosphere in the car.
Cars were winding through the streets of Amsterdam.
Linsen looked at the red wall outside the car window and exclaimed: "Speaking of which, I used to be a fan of Ajax. I didn't expect this Eredivisie giant has not entered the mainstream media's vision for a long time."
"Now Ajax cannot be underestimated." Gao Bo shook his head and said.
Although Ajax is still far behind its peak period, no one dares to underestimate this world's number one star processing factory. In the youth training system of Ajax, A large number of stars came out from here and flowed into major European teams.
From Cruyff and Van Basten to Sneijder, Van der Vaart, Huntelaar, etc., in almost every period, Ajax products can occupy an important position in the Dutch national team.
In fact, before the Bosman Act, Ajax was still a strong player in the Champions League.
Ajax can see from history that they have performed very well in European competitions. They are one of the top clubs in the European continent. In 1962, they defeated the same country club Feyenoord in the first UEFA Tutu Cup to win the first international championship. Multiple European championships, including 4 UEFA Champions League, 1 UEFA Cup, 1 UEFA Cup Winners Cup, 3 UEFA Super Cup and 2 Intercontinental Cup champions.
The first glorious period of Ajax was in the 1970s, 1971, 1972/1973, for three consecutive years. Ajax won three consecutive Champions League titles. They were the rulers of European football at that time. , They were the strongest team at the time.
And Ajax's fourth Champions League trophy is in the 1990s. On May 24, 1995, in the final at the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna, Patrick Kluivert was in front of the final. 6 minutes broke AC Milan goalkeeper Rossi's ten fingers off. This is the third time that Ajax has beaten AC Milan in the UEFA Champions League this season.
But this is also the last glory of Ajax in this European football's highest honor event.
In December 1995, the Bosman Act was introduced.
Before the Bosman Act, it was difficult for players to complete the transfer. First of all, even if the player's contract expires, the transfer to another team must be approved by the parent team. Otherwise, the transfer is absolutely impossible. The circulation of players among European countries is also affected by the foreign aid policies of their respective countries.
In the summer of 1990, midfielder Jean-Marc Bosman (Jean-Marc Bosman), who played for the RFC Liege team in Belgium, expired at the end of the season and the club was prepared to cut his annual salary by 60%. Bosman hopes to move to the Dunkirk club in France. But Dunkirk was unable to pay the high transfer fee offered by the Liege club at that time, which caused the transfer to fail. Under the old transfer system, even if a player's contract expires and other clubs want to recruit him, they must pay a transfer fee to the player's original club.
After receiving legal advice, Bosman took the Liege team and the Belgian Football Association to court in August of that year; in November, a Belgian local court ruled that Bosman's transfer was legal, and the Belgian Football Association lost the case; six months later, the Belgian Court of Appeal Ruled to reject the appeal; in January 1992, Bosman applied to the government for unemployment benefits and was rejected. In angrily, he filed a lawsuit to the European Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, claiming US$1 million on the grounds that the club did not let its transfer violated The EU "Rome Treaty" concerning the right of citizens of EU countries to freely choose their place of residence and freely choose their jobs. Bosman also asked the European Union to order UEFA to loosen restrictions on non-EU players because such restrictions are fundamentally a kind of racial discrimination.
The European Court of Justice made a ruling in favor of Bosman on December 15, 1995. After the introduction of the bill, players within the EU began to accelerate the flow, and players from small clubs hope to wait until the expiration of their contract to join the giants.
The Bosman Act also prohibits the local leagues of EU member states and the UEFA from restricting the number of non-local players in competitions, but does not include non-EU players.
After the introduction of this bill that is conducive to protecting the interests of players, European football immediately plunged into a crazy era!
The transfer fee began to skyrocket at the speed of light since 1996, and almost every year there will be transfers that break the transfer fee record and will appear in the transfer window.
In some major leagues, players' wages have also begun to increase significantly. For players in some small leagues, attracted by wages, many players are eager to play in these major leagues such as the Premier League and Serie A.
Ajax is undoubtedly the worst hit by the Bosman Act.
After the introduction of the bill, Ajax could no longer retain the players trained in his youth training. The players started to seek transfers to the major leagues after a little bit of a call. Even if they were relegated to the Premier League, the salary was also high. It's higher than staying in Ajax.
So since 1996, Ajax has slowly changed from the center of Europe to the current star processing factory. Their youth training camp is still rich in the best players in the world, but all this is for Ajax. In other words, the only meaning is to send players to the big clubs in Europe, nothing more.
In the domestic arena Ajax has not been smooth in recent years. Eindhoven has risen, and the Eredivisie champions have joined together. From the 2003-2004 season, they won the club's 21st Eredivisie. League Champions So far, Ajax has not been involved in domestic league champions for five seasons.
This season, Ajax still seems to be far from the top in the Dutch League. After the twenty-four rounds of the league, Ajax only scored 55 points, which is seven points behind the leader PSV. So much!
...
After coming out of the airport, the bus drove around the city of Amsterdam for about forty minutes, and then arrived at a hotel close to Feyenoord's training base.
Feyenoord and Ajax are mortal enemies in the same city.
Therefore, Luton's request to borrow the Feyenoord training base went smoothly and the other party responded.
In the past few days in the Netherlands, Luton can train at the training base in Feyenoord.
There are more than two days before the game, and Luton's adjustment time is very short.
For Gao Bo, the biggest difficulty in playing the Europa League is not how strong the opponent is, but that their schedule is too tight. There are already a lot of matches in the First Division, and there is still a need to strengthen the Europa League. Under the circumstances, the team has almost no rest time.