Brian Brobbey announced on Friday that he will continue his career after this season at the German top club RB Leizpig. There he sees more opportunities for himself than at Ajax, which tried to extend his expiring contract for a year and a half. Now that it turns out to be in vain, look Football zone ahead to the next year. How much perspective is there with the German number two and how are the reactions to his arrival there?
By Thijs Verhaar
Oh, the news hit hard when Ajax announced on Wednesday 3 February that Brobbey definitely renounced the option to extend his contract. After all, the club had made a generous offer to him and trainer Erik ten Hag, just like his players, repeated almost daily how much he wanted to keep the young striker there. Even last Thursday, when the nineteen-year-old attacker took care of the final chord as a substitute in the 3-0 victory over Young Boys in the eighth finals of the Europa League. “It is clear that the boy has a lot of qualities”, praised the trainer, who stated several times in recent weeks that Ajax was still trying to change his mind. “I think we have said a lot about it, that all those talents who go abroad actually fail 95 percent of it. I would wish him to stay with Ajax and continue this development with us. For the team, but also for himself. The chances of a great career are then greatest. But if he chooses otherwise, I respect that. “
Klaassen has warned departing Brobbey: ‘At Ajax you get more chances’
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After his glorious raid, the striker kept his lips together with the announcement that he would prefer to only talk about the game. Barely an hour later, however, transfer expert Fabrizio Romano already announced that the long-speculated transition to the Bundesliga was now actually complete and on Friday morning Leipzig confirmed this report. The German top club is pleased to recruit a great talent like Brobbey on a transfer-free basis and has signed him for four years. “He had offers from top clubs in Europe and we are delighted that Brian chose to come here,” sporting director Markus Krösche exulted in a press release. He calls Brobbey a young, versatile and determined player ‘. “This means it fits perfectly within the profile that Leipzig is looking for. He has already proved at Ajax that he can also perform on the big stage in Europe. ”
A search on social media shows that not all fans of Leipzig are equally enthusiastic. On the one hand, people are proud of that die Roten Bullen again managed to capture a great talent, but at the same time there is also a movement that reacts in surprise to the fact that another striker is being attracted. The club already has three numbers nine with Yussuf Poulsen, Alexander Sörloth and Hee-chan Hwang, while Christopher Nkunku and Emil Forsberg can also play as center forward in the brigade of trainer Julian Nagelsmann. “He expects his attackers to be agile and rotate a lot in position. So his striker must above all be smart, fast and goal-oriented, ”explains SPOXjournalist Stanislav Schlupp at the request of Football zone from. “Of all the options at the forefront, Poulsen does that best, so he is now the first choice.”
However, the Dane did not score more than five times in the Bundesliga this season, which puts him on a level with Forsberg. Nkunku has six, Sörloth three and Hwang is even completely dry in his first season after ten appearances, so seen from that perspective, it is not a bad idea for the club management to look for a goal cannon. Because that is what Brobbey is potentially. The nineteen-year-old striker was involved in six goals in the main force of Ajax in 213 minutes of play this season (four hits + two assists): every 36 minutes that Brobbey plays, he contributes to a goal. Those are figures that also made Leipzig coach Nagelsmann very enthusiastic: “In terms of stature and play, he is relatively comparable to Romelu Lukaku. We hope, of course, that he will become just as successful and show it on our behalf at the highest level ”, the trainer said at the press conference on Friday afternoon.
At the same time, however, he states that Brobbey still has a lot to learn at his young age and that it is not fair to expect miracles from the Dutchman right away. “We cannot think that he will immediately play as Lukaku, because that is not realistic. Not even now that we see that he is doing so well at Ajax ”, the coach refers to Brobbey’s goals against Young Boys and Lille in the Europa League. However, the coach is known for putting his teams under extraordinary pressure, which is extremely demanding on the stamina of his players. As is known, that is the main reason why the youngster had to wait a long time for his chance at Ajax I.
Schlupp therefore advises him to invest heavily in his fitness, otherwise he will not make it in Nagelsmann’s 3-1-4-2 formation. The journalist explains that the coach likes to have one strong point of contact, around which another, more agile attacker roams. It is easy to guess which of the two should be Brobbey when he lands in the Bundesliga next season, but the team’s ‘coat rack’ also has to make a lot of progress in the counterfoot of Leipzig. “Fortunately he does have a lot of speed, so I actually see him fit very well with the club. They play very attacking, fresh football and of course he has learned for years at Ajax how effective position changes are at the forefront. Nagelsmann swears by this and it is very effective: last season the team set a club record in the Bundesliga with 81 goals and with a high-scoring striker the team becomes even more dangerous. ”
At Leipzig, Brobbey has to deal with the only 33-year-old trainer Julian Nagelsmann, who is seen as the crown prince of the German trainers guild. “He is a young and very good trainer, from whom I can learn a lot. The team is stable and looks like a unit,” said Brobbey.
The journalist from SPOX doubts, however, whether Brobbey will be the first choice right away. “If you look at the number of strikers present, I guess he will have to be patient. Mainly because there are no rumors about outgoing transfers, but at the same time you never know with Nagelsmann ”, says Schlupp. The Crown Prince of the German Trainers’ Guild is known for giving youngsters the confidence they deserve in his eyes. “He expects a lot from his players, but also gives them the opportunity if they deliver quality. Lazar Samardzic (19) and Joscha Wosz (18), for example, get a lot of playing time, also in the top matches ”, says the journalist, who indicates that Leipzig even had for a long time the policy that players could only be bought if they were under 25 years old. goods. “Since they have been in the Bundesliga, they strive more for a mix, but there is still plenty of youth and with Nagelsmann they have the perfect trainer to develop further.”
Brobbey is largely in control of whether he can overcome the competition from Poulsen, Sörloth and Hwang and Schlupp gives him a helping hand. Erling Haaland and Jadon Sancho have recently proven again that the Bundesliga can be a very good competition to put yourself on the map and Brobbey is lucky that it makes no difference to Nagelsmann if you have a thirty million euro price tag around your neck. or that you have been transferred free of charge ”, said the journalist. “Of course that will have been an extra advantage for the club management, but I am sure that it will not affect his playing chances. He just has to work very hard, adapt and who knows he can put himself in the spotlight a little bit more by closing well at Ajax. ”
Nineteen-year-old Brobbey was involved in six goals in the main force of Ajax in 213 minutes of play this season (four hits + two assists): every 36 minutes that Brobbey plays, he contributes to a goal: a much better average than any Leipzig forward. then.
In Amsterdam, however, the question is whether he will still get playing time from trainer Erik ten Hag. For a long time, it was policy in the Johan Cruijff ArenA to allow players who did not want to extend the match to take a seat in the stands, but since Brobbey announced his departure in February, he has just passed competitor Lassina Traoré in the pecking order. “The best plays”, Ten Hag was always resolute. However, that approach may change now that all hopes for an extension at Ajax have disappeared in the trash, but Ten Hag’s statements on Thursday evening suggest that he does not intend to victimize Brobbey for his choice. “I will continue to work on him until the end of the season, continue to motivate, support and try to improve him”, he pledged, while Brobbey himself indicated that he would continue to give everything for the team from Amsterdam. “That’s what I have to do, right? The feeling is certainly still good. The contact with the players is very good. I get along well with everyone, that is great. It is not in my head at all. I focus myself. just on Ajax. “
In December, the striker gave in an exclusive interview with Football zone also that he would love to win a big prize with Ajax and at the moment he is on track to win the league title, while the quarter finals of the Europa League are also within reach thanks to him. In his way he can still achieve a dream goodbye, although fans of Ajax would of course have preferred that he would take the plunge much later. “We’ll see how it goes,” the striker said cryptically in December, although he already showed that Germany should be his next destination. “I think England, Spain and Germany are all great competitions, but in the Bundesliga I think my game will do the best for me,” said the striker. “Talents there also really get the chance to prove themselves, just like at Ajax. In England, for example, you see a lot more quickly that a new player is bought if things don’t work out for a while. ”