“I chose PSV because of him; the other option was Ajax.”

Nowadays, certainly not by players over the age of 20 and/or those no longer eligible for the U21 teams, a choice is no longer made that often between a transfer to PSV or Ajax.

In general, talented young players still tend to prefer Ajax or PSV, and to a lesser extent Feyenoord, but at a later age it is more often PSV that is preferred than Ajax. This is of course related to the financial situation of the Amsterdammers. For instance, Mats Rots of FC Twente actually had nothing left to choose from in the Eredivisie, due to the fact that the Amsterdammers simply lack the necessary financial resources to make solid moves in the Eredivisie.

It simply often stops for the people of Amsterdam when money needs to be invested. That was about five years ago and it was different before that. Former PSV player Aboukhlal also had that choice. The presence of Ibrahim Afellay was the reason for Zakaria Aboukhlal to move to PSV in 2017. Aboukhlal, now a player for the Italian club Torino, said that on Saturday evening on the NPO during the World Cup show De WK Avond.

As a youth player of Willem II, Had Aboukhlal had a few clubs to choose from about ten years ago. Along with Afellay, he was at the table on Saturday evening. "He is the reason that I went to PSV", he points to Afellay.

"For every Moroccan boy, Afellay was at the time an example. So yes, when at a certain point I could make the choice to go to PSV... What the other choice would have been? Ajax. We were teammates for a very short time at PSV, when he returned", it sounds with conviction. Aboukhlal moved, as a talented player, in 2019 to AZ. Via Toulouse in Ligue 1, the winger eventually ended up in Serie A with Torino.