Ajax is in talks with former playmaker Wesley Sneijder (39) about a role in the technical staff. Maurice Steijn wants to boost the Ajax content in his staff even further by bringing in the record international. Last year, Sneijder also had talks with Ajax about a role in the management, but those talks came to naught.
Steijn had already targeted Sneijder when he worked at Sparta, but a collaboration did not yet materialize. The 49-year-old coach from The Hague is already going to work with Saïd Bakkati and Hedwiges Maduro, but Sneijder now seems to be joining them.
Ajax is now in talks with Sneijder, who played for Ajax from 1991 to 2007. He came to 180 games in the main force, in which he scored 58 goals and 47 assists. Sneijder left for Real Madrid in August 2007 for 27 million euros. The attacking midfielder from Utrecht grew into a record international for Orange with 31 goals and 32 assists in 134 international matches.
After his former teammates Hedwiges Maduro (38) and Urby Emanuelson (37), Sneijder becomes the third former player to return to the club as a trainer this summer. Emanuelson will act as assistant coach of Young Ajax in the Kitchen Champion Division. Emanuelson will be the right hand of Jong Ajax coach Dave Vos. He was appointed as trainer in January after John Heitinga was promoted to the main squad following the dismissal of Alfred Schreuder.
Sneijder also talked to Ajax last year
Wesley Sneijder said in October last year that he had already been approached for a position at Ajax. Shortly after the departure of Marc Overmars, he was asked by Ajax for a position in the management. The Utrechter was open to talks about a renewed collaboration, but heard nothing from one day to the next.
Sneijder sat at the table with Veronica Offside every Monday evening last season. “We did have talks, but that was stopped at once. After that I heard nothing more. Those were internal conversations, who it was with doesn’t matter for now. Once the book was closed, it stayed closed for me too,” Sneijder said at the table. After the departure of Edwin van der Sar, talks with Sneijder have now been opened again by Sven Mislintat, the new director of football affairs at Ajax, who saw the captains Dusan Tadic and Jurriën Timber leave Amsterdam last weekend.
After ending his professional career in 2019 at Al-Gharafa in Qatar, Sneijder has been particularly busy in recent years at his club DHSC at the Sportpark Wesley Sneijder in the Ondiep district of Utrecht, where he grew up. DHSC finished tenth in the Fourth Division B last season, just below the amateurs of Ajax.
Last Wednesday, Sylvia Sneijder, Wesley’s mother, died of cancer at the age of 59.
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