Steven Berghuis left a good impression in the practice match between Ajax and Leeds United (4-0) on Wednesday evening. The attacker showed great things in his unofficial home debut in the Johan Cruijff ArenA and was also close to scoring his first goal in the Amsterdam kit. Davy Klaassen sees the the Dutch international who came over from Feyenoord become one of the public favorites of the supporters of Ajax.
Klaassen calls Berghuis ‘a very nice boy’. “And he makes a good impression. I think Steven has empathized very well with the team. Looks like he’s been playing here for years. He was received with a lot of applause and that’s how it should be,” emphasizes the midfielder in conversation with The Telegraph.
Klaassen about welcoming Berghuis Ajax fans: ‘He is welcome here’
During the European Championship, the first rumors appeared about a possible switch from Berghuis to the arch-rival. That led to jokes in the selection of the Dutch national team. The attacker contacted Klaassen and Daley Blind and vice versa. “From the moment it started to get a bit concrete, we joked about it. And he also asked us things. We tried to help him in that and to give him information on which to base his choice.”
“Yes, I tried to push him to Ajax, because he makes our group stronger”, Klaassen acknowledges. Erik ten Hag, in his own words, had ‘expected no different’ that Berghuis would be well received in Ajax’s home port. “He is a player who is an excellent fit for Ajax. He is such a graceful player, with such distinctive, stylish qualities, that he has to be placed in the hearts of the Ajax fans.”
Berghuis had to wait and see how the Ajax crowd would greet him. “I feel like I was well taken care of. I tried not to pay too much attention to it, more to what I had to do on the field. But I have to say, it didn’t disappoint. In the end I just have to show it on the field, I hope to do that,” the attacker told Ziggo Sports. “Doubt is perhaps not the right word, but I have thought carefully about this transfer. I was still an amateur player when I was sixteen or seventeen, then I had the dream of becoming a professional football player.”
“Eventually you try to get more and more out of it. I now feel everything that I have to prove myself again here. That can only make you a better player. So I’m just really happy with my choice. It’s talked about every day, of course, but I can hardly respond to it. Some things aren’t right at all, some are. That is about your back, the whole of the Netherlands is watching, that is sometimes quite heavy. But in the end you do try to stick to when you go out on the field and the people you work with. I was received fantastically by Ajax, also by my new teammates.”