Holland Recap #1

SLSG Staff at halftime of Ajax vs. De Graaschap Match

Hey Guys,

Well I am back from Holland and I am sorry that I did not blog while I was over there but I was pretty much busy the entire time I was over there.

And what a trip it was!!!!

I want to break the trip down into various parts so I make sure that I cover all the different clubs and games which I saw while I was in Holland.  I will slowly but surely make sure I get all my thoughts and notes from the trip on my blog.

Day 1:


Vitesse
(Voetbal Academie)

After arriving in Amsterdam on Monday morning, we went from the airport to our Resort in Nijmegen.  Upon arriving, the staff had some breakfast at our hotel and waited for our rooms to be ready for us to check in.  Some of the staff took a walk around the town but I stayed back at the hotel and worked out.

At 1:00pm, we met with Harry Jensen.  Harry is an awesome guy who is well connected throughout Holland with Dutch FA and Club coaches.  Harry gave us a nice welcome and told us a little about soccer in Holland.  One of the points I took from Harry right off the bat was that he is very interested in helping coaches.  He said that the reason Holland is so successful in soccer is the fact that they educate their coaches.  No one pretends to have all the answers to soccer problems but if coaches can help educate other coaches, the global game will grow.  I thought it was an interesting point and one that I do believe is very important for success of soccer in America.

In addition, Harry provided us with a detailed itinerary of the trip.  We were going to visit many clubs in Holland including the legendary Ajax and PSV as well as other small clubs such as NEC and Vitesse.  Some of the games we would be seeing was the Ajax Reserves, Ajax vs. Anderlecht in a Europa Cup game as well as Dortmund vs. St. Pauli in a Bundesliga match.

After meeting with Harry we had some lunch and then headed off to Vitesse to watch some training and meet with their coaches.

Vitesse is a small Dutch club which is in the Dutch Eredivisie League (Premier League for Holland).  Vitesse has U11 to U19 teams.  Every player does not have to pay anything to play for the club.  The club works to transport players to and from training.  Every player has a personal development plan which acts as a road map for player success.  Players work with the coaches to figure out what their personal goals are and how they want to achieve their goals.

All Vitesse coaches challenge their players to think soccer all the time.  In training and games, the coaches make the players tell them what they think they did right or wrong.  Winning is not important but striving to win is the most important thing.  The coaches make sure the players focus on the objective and after a certain exercise, the players are challenged to figure out what the objective was in the drill.  The single most important thing is that players have fun!!!!

At U11 and U12, the coaches train the teams 3 times per week plus a game on the weekend.  The frequency of training goes up when the players become U13-U15 (4 times per week).  The sessions focus a lot on working with the ball.

After visiting Vitesse, we headed off to see the Ajax Reserve Team play the De Graafschap Reserve Team.  The conditions for the game were cold and wet which for a fan was not ideal.  The game was played on a turf field in city park area.

It was a decent game.  Ajax started the game very quickly and we were moving the ball around very quickly on the wet, slick turf.  You could tell from the start that De Graafschap was content to sit in and let Ajax keep the ball.  Ajax created a few chances off of the work of Ozbilliz.  He is a very talented right wing forward for Ajax.  He is a lefty who likes to cut inside and combine off of the center forward for Ajax.  He was impressive.  He had tons of pace and was very quick.  About the midway point, De Graaschap scored a goal on a free kick against the run of play.  It was pretty unfair for Ajax but De Graaschap was content going 1-0 up into the break.

In the second half, De Graaschap continued to defend very deep while Ajax continued to probe and probe but could not find a goal.  You could tell that all the defending was starting to wear on De Graaschap and finally Ajax found a breakthrough.  Ozbilliz found the ball out wide and beat his mark inside and fired a shot into the lower corner.  A few minutes later, a very similiar situation happened when Ozbilliz again beat his mark to the end line and cut across the box and slide the ball under the keeper.

Ajax won the game 2-1 and I think we might have saw a new and upcoming star in Ozbilliz!

I included some pictures below of the game and our first day in Holland.

SLSG Staff at Vitesse

Harry Jensen at Ajax Reserve Game