Thirty years after their famous Champions League victory with eight out of eleven starters coming from their academy, Ajax Amsterdam continues to excel in youth development—and not just on the pitch. One of the key strengths of the Ajax academy is its longstanding focus on the well-being and personal development of its young players. For instance, no Ajax player resides at the training center; all players stay with host families, but not just any family. Ajax makes a point of closely replicating the family environment of the talented young player. If a player has an older brother and a younger sister, the club will place him in a home where he will be the "middle child." If the player’s parents live in an apartment, the host family will also live in an apartment building. The same goes for the family's social standing, the size of the garden, or whether they have pets. It’s a meticulous approach. The results? Difficult to measure, of course. But Ajax Amsterdam’s numbers—leading the rankings of clubs producing the most active professional players in 2023 across 31 European leagues (CIES)—speak for themselves.
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