Hans Vonk got to play against some of Europe's biggest clubs during his time at Ajax Amsterdam, but the former Bafana Bafana man has revealed he was disappointed not to have come up against the likes of Manchester United and Real Madrid in the famous competition.
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During your time at Heerenveen, you played in the UEFA Champions League for the first time. What was it like helping your team reach the prestigious tournament?
"The difference between the Eredivisie and Champions League is huge. When you go play international football, everything is bigger. It's quicker, faster. It's more physical, it's more intense. Everything is just one or two levels higher. Funny enough, after the draw, I was a little bit disappointed because I was hoping for at least one international top club, like a Man United, a Real Madrid or a Barcelona. With all due respect, we ended up with Valencia, Olympique Lyon and Olympiacos. Of course, they were all top clubs in Europe, and Valencia made it to the final, but I was a bit disappointed not having the absolute top level. Once you play in the Champions League you can understand that there was much higher level than the Dutch Eredivisie. It was good, I think we won one game and drew Valencia away which wasn't too good, but wasn't too bad either, but it was a beautiful experience.
When you moved to Ajax Amsterdam, what was it like playing with a young core that would go on to have great careers, like Steven Pienaar, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Rafael van der Vaart and Wesley Sneijder?
At Heerenveen there were also many young players, but at Ajax what I can remember is that it was a different environment. It was harder, it was more competitive. At Heerenveen, if you lose a game, everybody was disappointed for a day then they moved on. At Ajax, everybody was like, 'Oh my god, this is the end of the world, we need to win every game.' That attitude was full, you could see there was a lot of competition among the players, in a good way, because everybody wants to play. That was the biggest difference for me between Heerenveen and Ajax. At Heerenveen, we worked on a process on younger players to make them better. At Ajax, there was no time because there was a game every three, four days. Local games, cup games, international games, so the team was always formed by the players who had the best form. There was not so much of a long-term process, but that was compensated by the individual players who were so talented and so good that their individual development was done by itself just by playing games, where at Heerenveen the focus was more on training sessions and how to become better. [At Ajax] it was more of a solo-driven environment, where in Heerenveen, it was a more team-driven environment. There is no wrong or right in saying this, because that's how top clubs operate, they just have top players and they must do the job. So for me that was a big change for me after eight years at Heerenveen.
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The players individually were all very good. There was a young [Rafael] van der Vaart, young [Wesley] Sneijder, a young Johnny Heitinga, Maxwell, Filipe Luis and Zlatan [Ibrahimovic].
Steven [Pienaar] and I had a nice time at Ajax together. The good thing with Steven on the pitch is that you can always get a goal or two just because he was so good in making the right moves and right decisions.
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