Frank de Boer looks with sadness at how Diego Lainez’s career has fallen into disrepair. The trainer of Atlanta United thinks it would have turned out very differently if the nineteen-year-old Mexican had opted not for Real Betis in the beginning of 2019, but for Ajax.
Lainez hardly ever plays in Andalusia. “He didn’t go to Ajax because he could earn a million more somewhere else. I don’t know for sure, but that may be so. Now he is at Real Betis and he doesn’t play for a minute,” De Boer says. Media pace. “If he had signed for Ajax, he might have been able to FC Barcelona two years later.”
“He has now lost a year and you don’t want that at that age,” continues De Boer. “If you go directly to La Liga or the Premier League from Mexico, that step might be too big. You better make a stopover in the Netherlands, like Romário and Ronaldo did in the past. Then you can physically grow. With a hundred duels in the Netherlands, you are then ready for the next step. “
According to Ajax’s former trainer, it is ‘exactly the same story’ with Martin Odegaard. “We wanted to buy him with Ajax, but he opted for Real Madrid. He now plays very well at Real Sociedad, but first he had to go to Vitesse and other clubs. I don’t understand that. You have agents who only look at what they can earn “
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