Dolf Roks never expected to work for Ajax. The former head of the youth academy of Sparta Rotterdam was suspended from Het Kasteel at the beginning of October and immediately received an app from Amsterdam to start an exploratory conversation. It was ultimately not a difficult choice for Roks to give his word to Ajax and to work in the youth academy.
Roks was kicked out of Sparta due to a difference of opinion with technical director Henk van Stee. “When it came out that I had been fired in Rotterdam, there was already an app from Amsterdam with the invitation to drink a cup of coffee,” Roks tells. RTV Rijnmond. “I was surprised about that. I did it anyway, because I really enjoy football. It’s my passion. So I drove to Amsterdam a week later, they wanted to pull me in. There had been some other calls in the meantime, but the choice was not difficult.”
Roks says that he grew up in Zeeland in his younger years as a ‘real Ajax player’. “That was due to the team with Johan Cruijff that won the European Cup 1 in 1971, 1972 and 1973,” he says. “If you end up at Sparta in 1986, that will be your club and you want the first team to win. Then the feeling for Ajax naturally diminishes. I never expected to ever work for Ajax. I expected to stay with Sparta until I was 67 (retirement age, ed.).”
At the end of November, Roks found his new employer in Ajax. “I now work for the Ajax Coaching Academy (ACA)”, explains Roks. “That means that you try to bring Ajax’s knowledge to other clubs, which creates an exchange of knowledge. In my role as head of youth academy at Sparta, I had been in contact with Ajax for some time and with Marc Overmars in particular,” Roks refers to. to the partnership that the two clubs entered into in 2018.