"A forward line of Van Persie, Kuyt and Kalou... Any top team would settle for that!"

Tuesday 23 September 2008

Today Feyenoord's Technical Director Peter Bosz spoke out on the changing conditions for Dutch clubs to operate in.

The best Dutch players are no longer affordable for the Dutch teams, who can only benefit from the products of their own youth academies when they are either very young or over the hill - or when they are not that talented.

Just how big a difference it would make if the Dutch top clubs were able to hold on to their best players is shown by the imaginary lineups of Feyenoord, Ajax and PSV when we put those transferred at a young age back in the squad.

All three would be able to field squads that could on their day challenge the likes of Manchester, Chelsea, Barcelona and Madrid.

Have a look at Feyenoord for instance, who could field a forward line made up of Robin van Persie (Arsenal), Salomon Kalou (Chelsea) and Dirk Kuyt (Liverpool) had they not all left for the EPL.

Now most PL teams, if not all, would settle for that.

Other ones who came through the ranks at Feyenoord and who have now made it to the top are Royston Drenthe (Real Madrid), Orlando Engelaar (Schalke 04) and Glenn Loovens (Celtic).

Add these six to the current squad that still hosts Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Roy Makaay, Jonathan De Guzman and Kevin Hofland and together with the teenagers in the team the Rotterdammers would probably look at a Champions League quarterfinal each year at least.

Ajax won the Champions League in 1995 with a team that was almost entirely made up of players from their own academy: Dennis Bergkamp, Clarence Seedorf, Edgar Davids, Frank & Ronald De Boer, Patrick Kluivert, Michael Reiziger and Edwin van der Sar.

Two years later they were all gone and quickly Ajax sank back into European mediocrity.

But even looking at the products of the Ajax academy who are still making a name for themselves at present, the Amsterdammers too could field a team that would give Sir Alex Ferguson some sleepless nights before a possible encounter.

Because how about a defensive line with Edwin van der Sar (Manchester United), John Heitinga (Atletico Madrid) and Mario Melchiot (captain of Wigan Athletic), a midfield driven by Wesley Sneijder (Real Madrid), Clarence Seedorf (AC Milan) and Nigel de Jong (HSV Hamburg) and the likes of Rafael van der Vaart (Real Madrid) and Ryan Babel (Liverpool FC) up front?

Would you bet on them making it to a Champions League final every now and then?

I bet you would!

PSV Eindhoven are no that well known for their academy and rightly so, because when we have to think of one major European player coming through the ranks in Philipsville we can not come up with a single name.

But PSV have different tactics of scouting players at a very young age and then selling them on when they are 23 or 24.

They did it with Ruud van Nistelrooy, Arjen Robben (Real Madrid), Freddy Bouma (Aston Villa) Andre Ooijer (Blackburn Rovers), Ronaldo, Jefferson Farfan (Schalke 04), Mark van Bommel (Bayern Munich), Alex (Chelsea), Huerelho Gomes (Tottenham Hotspurs) and Arouna Kone (Sevilla FC).

Would PSV have lost 0-3 at home to Atletico with these guys in the lineup?

Probably not!

But the days of the best Dutch players actually playing in the Dutch domestic league are over.

Good management and youth development counts for very little nowadays.

Money rules.

Whenever either Feyenoord, Ajax or PSV think they have a talent that could do them some good in Europe, up comes one of the big European clubs, increasing it's already huge debt with 10 or 20 million more to again rob the Eredivisie of one of it's diamonds.

This season we may see the last of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Ibrahim Afellay, Miralem Sulejmani and Jonathan De Guzman.

And the youngsters who flavored Sunday's classic - Wijnaldum, Fer, Sarpong - might soon after follow suit.

It's a development that has been there since the mid-seventies, but that took on roller coaster speed after the Bosman-ruling.

Now European top sides don't even wait until Holland's best talents have played one single game in the Eredivisie.

Guys like Vincent van den Berg at Arsenal, Patrick van Aanholt and Jeffrey Bruma at Chelsea and Jordy Brouwer at Liverpool were all lured to England at a very young age without the clubs even having a chance to offer them a decent contract.

Players must be 16 in Holland to sign a professional contract that binds them to a club and all four left for England at an earlier age.

Perhaps Dutch clubs could be smarter by offering the parents a well paid job, as many foreign clubs do.

But to really give a small league like the Eredivisie - or any other small league - a chance, football is in need of a UEFA or FIFA ruling that would for instance simply prohibit players under a certain age to play in a foreign country.

However, European law still stands in the way of such a ruling, no matter what Michel Platini will come up with.

The consequence of that is that European top football is a business of a few big clubs, a few prosperous leagues and a massive wasteland around it.

We'll just gather the left-overs and keep on dreaming about ever winning the Champions League again, as that's all a Dutch football fan can do these days...

Arjan Plantinga
contact@dutch-football.com