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November
12, 1997
To Joshua Bickel,
 It's good to hear that there
are some young Americans out there who follow European
soccer. It's also good to hear that you follow my club. I
don't know if I would respond if you followed Feyenoord
from Rotterdam. :-)
When I was your age I never thought about playing
soccer in a foreign country. I grew up in Playa del Rey,
a suburb of L.A., and played soccer all through my youth.
I don't really know when it turned serious for me. I
remember going out to the park alone and working on my
technique and fitness. I guess that is a sign that it is
pretty serious. Now I usually don't head out to practice
alone. We practice here in the 2nd team 5 times a week
with one game usually played on Monday night. We are in
first place in our league! That is usually expected of
the Ajax reserve team though. As far as practices go we
practice hard but short. People often ask me if I play
3-4 hours a day.
No, I practice about 90 minutes a day. Then you have
to concentrate and really go all out in every little
exercise. We work on our capability to keep the ball
meaning a lot of keep a way games. We work on technique
quite a bit too. Mostly passing of the ball short, long,
sideways, backwards, upside down---literally everything.
Sometimes it seems like too much but how can you keep the
ball or score goals without being able to pass the ball
well.
You noticed that I played in the Dallas Cup. Yes, a
heart breaking loss in the final. Overall it was a very
fun tournament. I had played in the Dallas Cup twice when
I was younger and always watched the Super U-19 games so
playing with that group and then having a team capable of
winning it was something special. The week before that
tournament I played with the U.S. U-20 team while we were
preparing for the Youth World Cup in Malaysia. We beat
China in San Diego 1-0.
You were wondering what the differences between Ajax
and the American team are. Well, there are quite a few.
On the field the main difference is the system. Ajax
plays 4-3-3 and players tend to stay in their positions
and move the ball around from side to side until they
find a way to get closer to the goal. With the American
team we played 4-4-2 where the outside halfbacks would go
forward more and there would be more running through each
other. I enjoy playing with both teams, but switching
back and forth between the different styles still
confuses me from time to time.
As you may know Ajax has had a spectacular start in
the Dutch league. They have seperated themselves from the
other teams with about a 6 point difference. The new
coach has changed the look of Ajax a bit. He bought quite
a few players, the first team has about 26 players now,
which is not suprising. There is a tendency between the
big European teams to have large first teams. As for me,
I have been doing well in the reserve team and that is
all I can say. I don't know if I will get a chance or
not. Just wait and see. It was nice to hear from an
American Ajax fan. Hope I answered your questions. Good
luck with your soccer career.
Friendly Regards,
John O'Brien
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