Eljero Elia is still not comfortable that he was sent away from Ajax in the past. The now retired attacker tells Kick ‘t Met that he had to make way in the C’tjes for the twins Jaap and Ruud Jong, nephews of Frank and Ronald de Boer. Years later, Elia was able to return to Amsterdam, but decided to say no. “I had no more reassurance.”
Elia arrived at De Toekomst in 2000 and was as proud as a peacock. Two years later, however, it was already the end of the story, by ‘the De Boer brothers’. “I was sent away from Ajax because of twins. The De Boer brothers, Jaap and Ruud de Boer (who are actually called ‘Jong’ by last name, ed.). I was sent away and they came to my place. Then I started playing at ADO and Ajax wanted to get me again when ADO relegated,” says Elia.
However, the former winger thanked for a return to his childhood sweetheart. “Henk ten Cate was a trainer then and said: ‘Come to Ajax, but you can start training with the second’. Then I said: ‘No, I’m not going’. The second felt like a downgrade, I also had no reassurance anymore . I always played in A1 or B1 and was always top scorer. But always when I got to the final selection, I was the first to drop out. But I am the first of all of them to reach the Dutch national team,” Elia says. grams.
Still, Elijah’s subsequent success is a plaster on his wounds. “It touched me. You walk every week with your bag and Ajax tracksuit, are picked up by such a van, leave school at one o’clock, drive quietly to Amsterdam, go to training and do your studies.” Elia later kicked it up to thirty international matches for the the Dutch and employment contracts with Juventus and Feyenoord. At the end of 2022, he put an end to his career at the age of 35.