Marc Overmars knew he was watching something special when he first laid eyes on Kasper Dolberg. Jens Steffensen, a former Denmark international who has been Dolberg’s agent for more than four years, recalls: “After one day of his trial, he said to me: ‘We want to sign him.’
David Lee Youth Jersey We went inside to phone Kasper’s parents and discuss what to do – but it didn’t take long to decide because Ajax has such a long history of Danish players coming through the system; we chose them. It was a very good match. His personal trainer now is Dennis Bergkamp.”
Little more than two years on, Ajax’s technical director has been proven right. Dolberg, a 19-year-old powerfully built forward from Silkeborg, has excelled in Peter Bosz’s thrilling young side, scoring 16 goals in the Eredivisie and another six from nine starts in the Europa League. An impudent finish in the 3-1 defeat by Lyon in the second leg of the semi-final, dinking the ball over the goalkeeper and top-spinning it into the net to elude the despairing defender’s lunge, proved vital as Ajax booked their place in Wednesday’s final against Manchester United with a 5-4 aggregate victory.
Not for the first time this season, comparisons were made to a strapping teenager who made his mark in the famous red and white shirt 35 years earlier.
http://www.authenticspurstore.com/David_Robinson_Jersey After Dolberg’s 18-minute hat-trick against NEC in November, consisting of two trademark strikes with his right foot and a clever angled header, even Dolberg’s father, Flemming Rasmussen – like Dolberg’s mother, Kirsten Dolberg, a former professional handball player in Denmark – could not resist.
“I see many similarities with Marco van Basten,” he said, noting his son had just broken the 1988 European Championship winner’s hat-trick record by four minutes. “If he goes like him that’s very good of course. They are the same size, same speed and both have a good shot.”
Dolberg was spotted playing for his local side GFG Voel when he was 12. Having alternated between handball and football as child, he settled on the latter and joined Silkeborg’s academy. Still painfully shy, however, he initially struggled to settle and returned to Voel. A year later he was persuaded to go back.
“We signed Kasper when he was a 15-year-old boy,” says Steffensen, who owns the Scandinavian Soccer agency. “I played for six years in the Bundesliga and in the same Denmark team as Allan Simonsen and John Sivebaek, so I know a bit about talented players.
“He already had nearly everything at that time. He had speed, a fantastic eye for the game, ability with both feet, free-kicks. His game in the air was not that good but when you have that speed you can learn how to jump properly.
“But with young players, it always depends on what is inside his head.”
In 2009 another young Danish striker also appeared to have the world at his feet. “Within five years I want to be the top scorer in the Premier League and I want to be known as a world-class striker,” Nicklas Bendtner, who now plays in Norway for Rosenborg, told the Guardian eight years ago. “And it will happen. Trust me, it will happen.”
There appears little chance of Dolberg making the same mistakes as the former Arsenal striker. In an interview with the Danish national broadcasters DR in October, the softly spoken teenager said his preference was “to remain in the background” – a trait his father believes his son has inherited from him.
“He can come across as indifferent, nonchalant or even cold but that can be deceptive,” Rasmussen said. “When he is on the pitch and facing competition he will think, deep down, that he will get the better of that opponent.”
Steffensen says: “Kasper is a very quiet person and his feet are always one metre in the ground. It’s important to have that connection to earth.”
After Dolberg made his debut for Silkeborg in May 2015 and starred for Denmark’s Under-19s, Wolfsburg contacted Steffensen that summer and arranged for him to attend a trial. John Steen Olsen, Ajax’s celebrated Scandinavian scout whose long list of discoveries includes Jan Molby,
Authentic Allen Bailey Youth Jersey Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Christian Eriksen, had also spotted something and asked the agent not to make hasty decisions. It was the prospect of working with Bergkamp, who has been entrusted with bringing through young players to the first-team squad, that was the most persuasive argument.
“Danish players have almost the same mentality as the Dutch people,” Steffensen says. “You can count on the fact that they are team players and also have very good technical ability when they are young. But because the domestic competition is not as strong as other countries you need to find the right place to step up to the next level.
“When Kasper came to Ajax he was a left winger. But Marc Overmars told us that he thought he could be a fantastic No9. He put Bergkamp and Kasper together and we have seen the results ever since.”
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Ajax paid €270,000 to sign Dolberg but, at first, his progress was steady not spectacular. After some promising appearances in the Uefa Youth League,
http://www.chiefsofficialsauthentic.com/CHIEFS-ALBERT-WILSON-JERSEY he was invited to last summer’s pre-season training camp in Turkey by Bosz and forced his way into the first-team reckoning, signing a five-year contract before he had made his senior debut.
“We knew that he would get to this level … but to be there so quickly was a surprise for us,” Steffensen says. “In the last few years he has really started to develop physically and I think that is one of his strongest assets now. He’s also very calm; he believes so much in himself. Kasper has a natural instinct going forward but is not a selfish player.”
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