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NOS Football•today, 06:26
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“Mo, higher. Higher!” A few minutes later: “Outwardly. Outwardly, Mo. Now inwards!”
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Trainer Alfred Schreuder is busy with his twenty-year-old pupil Mohamed Ihattaren during his unofficial debut for Ajax against the German SV Meppen. Partly due to the absence of the ‘big boys’, who are still on vacation, the accumulated talent is the man to be watched on the main field of Quick ’20 in Oldenzaal in Twente.
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Earlier this week, Schreuder saw how a fit and irritated Ihattaren reported for the first training days at De Toekomst. “He has continued training, so that’s good to see,” he said on Friday. “To get a boy like that going again is a nice challenge for a trainer, of course. Those guys can make the difference.”
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‘What a player, huh’
Ihattaren also distinguishes himself with his creativity in the first practice game of the training camp in De Lutte. “What a player, huh”, sounds from the stands in Twents when the Ajax player cheats a German defender with a perfect assumption.
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Meppen’s left back has a tough evening anyway, because he is played by Ihattaren moments later. Cheers from the spectators follows. Before halftime, he again shows his class when he brilliantly tucks Sean Klaiber away. His brilliant pass is not appreciated by the right back and dies in beauty.
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With nineteen-year-old Naci Ünüvar, the chemistry is better. The two talents and contemporaries, who will definitively join the A-selection this season and have to assert themselves in the preparation, know how to find each other blindly. The dynamic duo is at the basis of the third goal. Ihattaren play-in pass. Lovely heel from Ünüvar on right winger Sontje Hansen. Goal.
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“Good footballers can always easily find each other anyway,” says Ünüvar. “They look for each other. I have known Mo for a while, of course”, he refers to the time he played against Ihattaren (PSV at the time) in youth. “We have become good friends. On and off the field. You saw that a few times today.”
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Together with Youri Regeer, Ihattaren is the only player who is still at the kick-off after the break. Because even though the winger, who could also play ‘on 10’, is a lot fitter than when he came in at Ajax, he mainly has to gain match rhythm.
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quick eyes
“The pace at which he played looked good,” Schreuder told ESPN. “You can see that he is good on the ball and that he has quick eyes. Now he still has to work on his fitness and match rhythm. There is still a lot of work to be done, but that applies to every player actually. When you see which steps he has made the last few months… That looks very good and is nice to see.”
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After an hour, Ihattaren is taken to the side and we see yet another youth player come on the field in front of him. With a broad grin he accepts Schreuder’s outstretched hand, then jokes with the beloved team coach Herman Pinkster and has a chat with goalkeeper Remko Pasveer before he dives into the tunnel. And he’s gone.
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For now, the press only talks about Ihattaren to others. Since he came over from Juventus on a rental basis this winter – it is expected that Ajax will lift the option to take over him for a few million euros – he has been shielded from the media by Ajax. It was strongly requested to leave him alone so that Ihattaren, who was seen as a problem child at both PSV and Sampdoria, could work on his comeback in the lee.
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Tease
That will change this week. As usual, he will first give an interview to the media department of Ajax. He will also speak to the press later this week. In those interviews, questions about his lack of fitness and too many pounds will probably be spared him. The players will no longer tease him, his buddy Ünüvar assures.
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“I did make some jokes about his fitness, yes,” he says with a big grin. “But he got to work, huh. So now those jokes aren’t made anymore.”
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