Leonardo needs affection

Tuesday 17 February 2009

He thinks classics are the best games to play, as they are broadcast live on television in Brazil.

"Now I know what they will say when I phone home," says Leonardo who was one of the best players on the pitch during Ajax-Feyenoord on Sunday.

"Leo, what have you done to your hair. You were much better looking without it."

A charming fellow still, Leonardo Vitor Santiago, in his 8th season in the Eredivisie.

Dark eyes and a nice, Brazilian tongue he's a smiling dribbler of 25.

With his hands in the pockets of his club costume he talks about his future.

"I think I'll stay here until June, enjoy the summer months here," he says.

Henk ten Cate, coach of Panathinaikos wants to lure him to Athens.

A contract lies waiting for the players who's contract at Ajax expires this summer.

Coach Marco van Basten praised him after role as a sub against Feyenoord: "When Leo keeps playing like this I'd love to have him here."

It's a question whether that remark ha an effect on Leonardo as he's been warming the bench for most of the season and Ajax never showed much intention to extend his contract.

Not even when Leonardo almost begged Ajax to clear up the situation.

"I do have a girlfriend and a son to take care of," he said earlier in the season.

Ajax and Van Basten have not really created an atmosphere in which the sensitive Brazilian feels at home.

The winger has always been a character but so far he has performed best under coaches who were warm hearted and patient.

He blossomed at NAC Breda after he left Feyenoord and that is when Henk Ten Cate brought him to Ajax in 2007.

Ten Cate is a coach who will put an arm around a player's shoulder, unlike Marco van Basten.

For Leonardo such things are important and he knows the contract Leo can sign in Athens is also a gesture by Ten Cate.

In spite of three serious knee injuries - the last one he sustained in March 2007 against Heerenveen - the Amsterdammer has unconditional faith in the former super talent.

"Leonardo made the difference on his own," said Feyenoord player Theo Lucius after Sunday's game.

The defender had seen how Leonardo had made Feyenoord full back Dwight Tiendalli look very old.

"I don't really know if I played well," the man himself says.

"You all see it from a distance. I just try to get into the box as soon as I can. I play my own game."

With that remark he illustrates his own unsteadiness.

Leonardo is hard to coach and that is why many coaches couldn't handle him.

But this season too he has shown his worth, as he did in Hamburg a few months ago.

After that he was invisible for weeks.

"The coach was right not to start me against Feyenoord," he says with a smile.

"Because a winning coach is always right. And we won, s Van Basten was right""

After almost ten years in the Eredivisie he has learned diplomacy.

About his former club Feyenoord for instance, where he grew up.

Leonard still lives in Rotterdam.

"Of course I think it's terrible to see where they are now. But Feyenoord are still a great club. But many good players were told they weren't good enough. They all play somewhere else now. That's a shame I think."

Still it's nothing special anymore to play against Feyenoord anymore.

"The novelty has worn off a bit now. But Ajax-Feyenoord is the best game in Holland. In Brazil everybody know that that is the classic. I am proud I have played for both clubs."

No matter how well he played as a sub, it's no guarantee that he will start on Thursday against Fiorentina as Van Basten looks at every game individually.

"We'll see," says Leonardo.

"Wherever the coach plays me, I'll do my best."