Sergino Dest will have a chance to work himself into Ajax’s first team this summer.
The club announced their 29-player training camp roster which begins on Monday. The 18-year-old Dest is coming in off U-20 duty with the U.S. U-20 Men’s National Team.
Dest has yet to feature for the senior team and is coming off a combined 34 appearances for Ajax II in 2018-19. He scored four goals and added six assists in all competitions.
Ajax will take on Quick ’20 Zaterdag on Tuesday in their first friendly of the summer before facing Danish side Aalborg this Saturday.
The team is coming off a domestic double last season and a UEFA Champions League semifinals appearance.
Quick ’20 Zaterdag.
Wow.
Dest and Perie both starters today. Perie is US-eligible but has been active with the Dutch NT for at least four years now.
Best player out the 20s and dribbled.
Please, please, please make it son. His speed, dribbling abiltiy, and quickness would be a great asset to the US. Even as a wingback/right sided midfielder IMO. He isn’t a sure thing at Ajax but he has a legit chance I think. Best of luck to him. If he can’t stick he could definitely play for a number of Dutch clubs and contribute. He needs games. Paxton, Weah and Dest IMO are the U20’s who can help the US now in some way, shape or from. Dest is a bit behind them but can shoot up quick if he plays first team. Richards is the one with real star potential, but needs games. These four will bolster the US squad in many ways.Fingers crossed.
The USMNT has a number of needs, but RB is fairly far down the pecking order or priorities. I agree that Paxton, Weah, Dest, & Richards are probably the top tier of the U-20s who haven’t already featured for the Sr. Team, but there are others. Unfortunately none of them are going to get a shot a the Sr. Team anytime soon as Berhalter seems to be a carbon copy of Arena and holding onto the aging veterans ahead of pushing to incorporate our youth prospects.
They were out physicalled in 4 out of 5 matches what do you think that looks like against 24 and 28 year olds instead of 19 year olds. If they are seeing professional minutes and doing well they’ll see NT minutes if theyre not playing or playing youth games they won’t and shouldn’t.
Ha. Berhalter is clearly a “carbon copy of Arena”. Awesome take! Clearly the guy doesn’t take chances on new players! Let’s ignore the fact that our starting XI vs. Trinidad featured 7 players who were either 20 years old or had less than 12 caps! Old guard all the way!
***********************
As JR said, the overhyping of the readiness of our U-20 stars (excellent though they are) has become absurd. They remain undersized and vastly under experienced. In 2-3 years? Yes absolutely. I hope to see at least 4-5 of them take part in this WC cycle at some point. But this talk that “our U-20 team is better than our senior team!” needs to die. It’s ridiculous.
If you add Sargent to your list you will have HALF a team for the NT. You add the current 3 young ones, Puli, WM and Adams and you have a heck of a team to build around.