Sergino Dest has left Ajax’s winter camp in Qatar and returned to Amsterdam.
The U.S. Men’s National Team defender did not feel comfortable in the Middle Eastern Country and returned to train with Jong Ajax. Dest’s decision comes roughly a week after the USMNT postponed its trip to the same country for a training camp of its own.
The recent killing of Iranian general Qasem Soilemani by a U.S. drone strike has sparked concerns about retaliation aimed at Americans in the Middle East. Since then, Iran had fired middles at Iraq, which housed over 3,000 recently deployed American soldiers.
Dest has continued to blossom into a first team regular for Ajax, making 23 appearances for Erik ten Hag’s side this season. He has recorded four assists in Eredivisie play, while contributing his first two goals in Ajax’s latest KNVB Cup win.
The 19-year-old will be expected to return to USMNT duty later this year, when Gregg Berhalter’s side visits Amsterdam for a March friendly against the Netherlands.
Dest made his decision to represent the USMNT over the Dutch in 2019, and since has made two appearances in Concacaf Nations League play.
Ajax returns to league action on Jan. 19th against Sparta Rotterdam.
He is crazy F those terroist stay and play the beautiful game! So if USA makes the WC are we gonna cave in and not go to Qatar, Beef with Ian will be forever.
I’ve fired off a few “middles” in my life time. While emotionally harmful They’ve never been considered truly dangerous
Netherlands is great but they have not won a world cup. They Play beautiful possession based futbol but aren’t good defenders. The U.S. team will progress getting better. We now have the talent coming up and dest choose U.S. because he must see like I do that there is a great future for us. I myself have been very pessimistic because we missed the world cup and have lost many times to Mexico in our concacaf tournaments. But Mexico shouldn’t be the measuring stick. They Mexico have not done well in world cups we helped them by beating Panama so they could get a chance at the play off to qualify for 2014 otherwise they were eliminated. In this last world cup they beat the worst Germany ever even south corea beat theme 2-0. We have the players coming up the ranks and with a good strategy and our best players and fight we will get back to a quarter final. But honestly the world doesn’t like it when we get better at soccer or futbol because they know that here in the states it’s not even as popular as it is in there countries despite that we have gone further in a world cup than many of these nations. USA let’s go 2020 is a great soccer year for us.
19 years old. That is a lot of confidence there to leave a job your are fighting hard for. Smart kid. Gotta do what you gotta do for number 1 in this life.
He picked the US over the Netherlands.
Being number one is clearly not a priority for him.
Big picture Rob. You have to look at it from a different perspective man. Dest is looking at the big picture.
Hahahaha damn that was a zinger