It is summer 2022 when Israel surprisingly reaches the final of the European Championship under 19 in Slovakia. Most players are tense in the run -up to the game against title favorite England, which consists of players from clubs such as Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea. Only Oscar Gloukh seems unmoved. Defender Stav Lemkin is surprised and asks him about it. “Why should I be afraid of England?” Says the game distributor.
“Typical Oscar,” says Lemkin, who drew this summer at FC Twente. He is friends with Gloukh. Asked about the football qualities of his countryman, he says: “The ball sticks to his foot, he is two -legged, has a good insight into game and can handle small spaces.”
Despite a nice goal from Gloukh in the final against England, Israel loses in the extension. But the little dribbler has established his name. His manager has a conversation with Ajax not long after the final. The parties will not come out, but a few weeks ago. For 14.75 million euros, one of the highest purchase amounts in the history of the club, Gloukh is taken over from Salzburg.
In addition to a technically gifted player, Ajax with Gloukh also brings in an Israeli international. That is sensitive due to the war violence in Gaza. It is not without reason that Gloukh abandoned a transfer to Olympique Marseille at the beginning of this year. “The current situation arouses a certain fear,” father Max told Israeli Eretz Sport. Opposite NRC He clarifies: “With the increasing tensions in France, we thought it is not the right time.”
Gloukh refers to the tensions between the Jewish and Islamic community in that country. In a Nations League match between France and Israel, no fewer than four thousand police officers were deployed last year.
Cool frog
In his younger years, Gloukh walks through all youth teams of Maccabi Tel Aviv. He participates in a Neurofeedback -based training game, visualizing sports promotions through a headset. “Oscar focused on mental control, focus, emotional regulation and the precision of important actions,” says Konstantin Sonkin, who developed the technology, by e -mail. He characterizes Gloukh as “exceptionally driven.”
At Maccabi, Gloukh soon stands out because of his “good work ethics,” says Patrick van Leeuwen, who coached him in both youth education and the first team. Because of his technical and tactical skills, he played in older age groups from the age of twelve. But when the difference in length became more and more visible, Van Leeuwen kept him in the under 15 a year longer. “A cool frog,” says Van Leeuwen Gloukh, who develops well at Salzburg.
In two years he plays 101 games for the Austrian club, in which he scores 23 goals and gives 29 assists. But then he was ready for the next step, Maxim Glouh, father of Oscar, e -mails in response to questions from NRC. “He needed more challenge. Wanted to play with more exposure and intensity in a competition.”
Why are the expectations about Gloukh so high? And how does the new number 10 of Ajax stand up at a time when the tensions run high due to the war in Gaza?
NRC spoke with fifteen stakeholders and connoisseurs. They characterize Gloukh as a driven, introvert, stress -resistant man. Almost without exception they expect him to make it far, provided that he will make progress on a few points in the coming years. For example, he will have to develop his defensive game and ensure that he plays a very match well, not 40 or 50 minutes.
A very good coach
Oscar Gloukh grew up in a family with four children in Rehovot, a city just outside Tel Aviv. His father Maxim comes from Moldova and emigrated to Israel at the age of thirteen, where he meets his wife – she emigrated to Israel from Uzbekistan.
Maxim Gloukh himself was also a football player. In Moldova he played as a striker at the Tiraspol Academy. “My parents received an offer to send me to larger clubs in Russia and Ukraine, but we emigrated to Israel.”
His wife is the “emotional anchor” of his son, he writes. “She keeps him focused and balanced, on and next to the field. When he comes to us, he gets the food he likes. There is nothing as comforting as eating at home, prepared with love.”
In addition to football, Oscar Gloukh also practices other sports as a child, including martial arts. His balance and coordination are getting better and it makes him more disciplined, says his father. “From an early age, Oscar was focused and competitive. I did my best to teach him that talent suggests nothing without hard work.”
But you also have to cherish talent, Gloukh Senior knows. One misstep can herald the end of a promising career. That is why his motto is: small steps, smart choices and only playing for clubs that invest in the development of young people and personal growth. Maxim is also the one who states that Gloukh takes English lessons in his last months at Maccabi, so that he can communicate well with his new teammates in Europe, on and outside the field.
“Maxim has always considered his son a project,” says Assaf Cohen, commentator at the Israeli TV channel Sports 1. “He went to all training sessions. When he saw that it wasn’t really going on at Maccabi Sha’arayim, a club near Rehovot, he made sure that Oscar was given more challenge at Maccabi Tel Aviv. Maxim has a small trading company, and he didn’t want that too big, because he could put less time in his son’s career.”
Cohen has been following Gloukh since his youth for Sport1and it mentions striking how self -consciously the Israeli is for his age. “He knows what he is worth and where he wants to go. As a horse with blinkers he goes through life. He is so focused that he seems to forget everything around him.”
The latter is sometimes interpreted as selfish. “It is no secret that he is not a team player and especially strives for his own interests,” wrote Nister Christoph, sports journalist for Kronen Zeitungone of the largest newspapers in Austria. He was surprised last fall that Gloukh did not want to travel to Wolfsberger AC for a match, because he did not want to take a seat on the bench. It led to a disciplinary punishment of the club.
Asked for an explanation, let Christoph know by e -mail: “That he did not want to sit on the couch is the best example of his behavior. But he also rather dribbling on the field than he fell to others. He didn’t have many friends within the team.”
Michael Unverdorben, sports journalist at Salzburger Nachrichtenhe agrees with his colleague that Gloukh behaves “rather selfish” on the field. But yes, he says, maybe the “extremely strong dribbler and very good assistant” just didn’t have such a high cap of his teammates in Salzburg.
Ran Ben Shimon, National coach of Israel, thinks that Gloukh will be closed by his teammates at Ajax. Although that will probably take a while. “Oscar does not allow people to easily. You first have to win his confidence to communicate with him.”
Ben Shimon tells that he does not know a player who deals with pressure as Gloukh. Not unimportant, he says, when expectations are so high. But he is most impressed by how well the midfielder can ‘read’ the game. “With the Israeli team we often analyze match images. In between I ask challenging questions, and I always notice how Oscar looks at the big picture, where his teammates zoom in on details.” You will be a very good coach once, “I said to him.”
A Little Bit of a GeniusBen Shimon calls him. And you must “approach geniuses in a certain way,” he explains. The national coach chooses his words carefully because he knows how sensitive things like this are. But still: “Genies must be in a very, very safe zone. You have to offer them some extra protection.”
Hostage
Last week was the applause of the Ajax audience when the image of Gloukh acquisition was shown on the scenes in the Johan Cruijff Arena at the last exhibition match. Outside the stadium and certainly on social media, there is also criticism. Why precisely in this time of polarization and genocidal violence in Gaza record an Israelian? Does Ajax realize what you are releasing? Certainly after the violence driven violence ‘of anti-Israeli, anti-Israeli, antizionist and anti-Semitic rhetoric’ around the match against Maccabi Tel Aviv, at the beginning of November last year.
Although Gloukh loves politics according to the Israeli national coach, he expresses himself several times in the first weeks after the large -scale and bloody attack of Hamas on October 7, 2023. For example, he played that month at Salzburg and also later with number 30to draw attention to the thirty children who were held hostage by Hamas.
“Standing up for hostages is not political, it’s humanitarian,” Gloukh writes on October 19, 2023 in a post on Instagram. And on October 25 thanks in a post “All soldiers who now guard our country,” men “my age.” He condemns the act of Hamas, where “citizens who came to enjoy and dance in cool blood were slaughtered,” and calls the Israeli army “the strongest army in the world.”
They are statements of a football player whose family lives in Israel, it sounds in the Jewish-Dutch community. Done after an attack that to this day, in Israel and beyond.
No matter how close the war comes for Israeli football players, it turns out when Gloukh in Salzburg to his best friend Afik, a sergeant killed in Gaza last March. The Austrian newspapers write about it.
Because of the war it is sometimes difficult to focus on football, says national coach Ran Ben Shimon, who on the street last month in Greece was attacked When he spoke Hebrew with his assistant. He regularly talks about the war with his players, who can fall back on psychologists if they need it.
His selection consists of players with different backgrounds, Ben Shimon, Van Arabs, Druzen and Christians, emphasizes Jews and Circassians. “That goes well together, there is never disagreement about politics. Just like me, Oscar does not judge people on their nationality, appearance or financial status. He finds a good character more important than anything.”
Recently, Gloukh has no longer commented on the war and he will not do that quickly, expects his environment. Ajax has not imposed the game distributor in that respect any restriction, says his father. The club does not want to say anything about it when asked.
Fabian Nagtzaam, director-director of Supportersvereniging Ajax, does not forget any problems. “That issue does not play at all within Ajax,” he says. “We have 160,000 members and they let them hear if there is something she doesn’t like. When Ajax invested a training camp in Qatar, our mailbox was full. Now, after the arrival of Gloukh, we got one negative response.”