New clubs for Krohn-Dehli, Culina, Akachar
05 May: In less than two days time three Young Ajax players
with modest first team experience have found a new
club for next season. On Tuesday the transfers of striker
Jamal Akachar (to Cambuur Leeuwarden) and midfielder Michael
Krohn-Dehli (to RKC Waalwijk) were confirmed. On Wednesday
striker Jason Culina signed a contract at FC Twente. The
respective Ajax deals of all three players expire at season's
end. Contract extension was not offered to them.
Jamal Akachar (21), who signed a two season
deal at Dutch First Division outfit Cambuur Leeuwarden, had
only one first team appearance for Ajax, but made headlines in
the Dutch press for a while because of his remarkable career at
Ajax. A product of the Ajax youth system the Moroccan striker
was deemed not good enough for a professional contract. Akachar
decided to call it quits and accepted a job as a taxi
driver.
As he started missing the game he joined the Ajax's Saturday
amateur section, but performed so well for Ajax's
Saturday-1 amateur section that his former club offered him a
professional deal after all. Due to several injuries of first
team forwards he was added to the first
squad shortly thereafter and made his Eredivisie
début on 05 April 2003 against RBC
Roosendaal. This highlight in Akachar's career,
however, turned out to be his only Ajax-1 appearance. This
season he had 24 appearances for Young Ajax, in which he only
scored once. He recently played against Ajax-1 in a
friendly, with the
MarocProfs team. (Source: Ajax.nl)
Michael Krohn-Dehli (21) signed a two year
contract at Eredivisie side RKC Waalwijk on Tuesday. The
transfer of the Danish midfielder will be official after a
final physical test. Krohn-Dehli was generally regarded as
one of the more talented players of the extremely succesful
Young Ajax crop of 2001-2002, but never had an official first
team appearance due to stiff competition from midfielders such
as Rafaël van der Vaart, Steven Pienaar and Wesley
Sneijder, although Krohn-Dehli could also play as a right
midfielder or even as a winger.
The Dane made his (unofficial) first team début in
the 14 October 2003 friendly at
Djurgårdens IF and also got playing time in the
07 January 2004 friendly at
Heracles Almelo. He was close to the first team, but was
never granted a chance in a first team game. Ajax and the
player then decided that there will be no future for him at
Ajax and that it would be best Krohn-Dehli to move on. With RKC
Waalwijk he can finally make his Eredivisie début.
(Source: RKC Waalwijk.nl)
Jason Culina (23) has been offered a
two year contract at Eredivisie outfit FC Twente today and will
sign after a final medical test. Culina can
- ironically - almost be regarded as an Ajax veteran.
The Australian joined Ajax in the summer of 1999 and was
presented as a gem for the future. He appeared in a string of
the first team's pre-season friendlies in the summer of 1999
and a good future seemed ahead for the 'Aussie'.
But things passed off quite differently. During his five
years at Ajax Culina never made it to the first squad, feeling
'stuck' at Young Ajax for the past two years.
Culina was loaned out twice during his stay in Amsterdam.
On 22 January 2001 he
became the first Ajacied to be 'parked' at Ajax's newly
acquired Belgian 'satellite club' Germinal Beerschot Antwerp
(GBA). He was loaned out to De Graafschap during the 2002-2003
season, but could not avoid the Doetinchem
side's relegation to the First Division. A disillusioned
Culina returned to Young Ajax, hoping that a club would show
up.
Remarkably, however, Culina was one of Young Ajax's best
players of the current season. Coach John van 't Schip made him
captain and the Australian scored no less than 25 goals in
33 (league and cup) games for the Ajax reserves this season.
Which - finally - led to his first team début for
Ajax, at a moment that Culina had already accepted an
anonymous departure through the back door at season's end.
Right at the end of his career he saw 44 minutes of first team
action, in the Eredivisie away games at
FC Twente (21 December 2003) and
RKC Waalwijk (06 March 2004).
Arguably Culina's most memorable moment as an Ajacied was
his spectacular long-range and last-minute equalizer for Young
Ajax against - how ironic - his new club FC Twente, in the
Amstel Cup fixture on 12 December 2001. The club he
scored his most memorable goal and made his first
team début against will be his new club, starting this
summer.
To player as patient and amazingly loyal as
Jason Culina has been in the past five years a
personal goodbye is appropriate. Thank you, Jason.
Although in the end your Ajax adventure was not what you
hoped it would be: it was a pleasure having you here. Good luck
at Twente. (Source: NOS Teletekst). (MP)
Related links
