The international match seemed a welcome change for Myron Boadu, but nothing could be further from the truth. The AS Monaco attacker started in the duel of the Dutch Juniors with the peers of Switzerland (2-2) on the bench and against Young Wales (5-0) he did not even take action because, according to national coach Erwin van de Looi, he did not play. showed his best side in training. “What a player should always do – and what you can expect – is go for it and show that he wants to get better and fight back to a certain level,” he said after the resounding victory over Wales.
“I don’t know him like that”, is the first reaction of Martin Haar to the words of Van de Looi. The 69-year-old Haar, still active in the youth academy of AZ, experienced the attacker from his first steps in professional football. It was a carefree time then, but that changed once he ended up at the first of AZ. “I sometimes saw training sessions of the first in which he went for a walk at a switchover moment. Then I thought: come on, Myron, that can be done for a while. what more,” he says in conversation with the General Newspaper.
Her also had this thought after the transfer from Boadu to Monaco, where he is still dry after ten matches. “In the Netherlands he could sometimes get away with that. But not there, at the very highest level. Then he must realize that more is being asked. When Myron combines his talent with work, he gets even better.” John van den Brom, former trainer of AZ, calls his former pupil ‘a leopard’. “Dozing in the field and then bam, strike. That’s how he’s always been. It’s actually waiting for another moment like that.”
Haar is convinced that Boadu’s own environment will be critical. And not just the attacker’s father. “I know Jose Fortes Rodriguez. He’s on top of it,” he refers to Boadu’s agent. “It can be tough.” Van den Brom points out that Boadu was the pet of AZ for years and at the same time about the most undisputed basic player in Alkmaar. “If you then have to start at the bottom of the hierarchy at Monaco, with great strikers in front of you, you have to get used to it.”
Van den Brom is not worried, however. “If you look at the strikers of Jong Oranje, they have all had their share of criticism by now. Joshua Zirkzee in Belgium and Brian Brobbey because of his choice for RB Leipzig. We also have to be a little careful with those guys. Surely there is no one who suddenly doubts Myron’s qualities?”