Noah Lang
When he was first promoted to Ajax’s first team, Noa Lang quickly exploded and was considered one of the brightest young talents of the Eredivisie giant. However, in the end, the way Lang left Ajax was as fast as this player’s promotion process, with the main reason stemming from the conflict with coach Erik Ten Hag.
After 60 years, Lang is the first player to score a hat-trick for Ajax in his debut match in the National Championship, but in Ten Hag’s eyes, he is still a normal player like any other player. Therefore, immediately after determining that the Belgian talent had serious attitude problems, Ten Hag did not hesitate to kick this striker out of the club.
Noa Lang quickly packed her bags and left Ajax.
It can be said that the conflict between Lang and Ten Hag reached its peak in Ajax’s victory over Telstar in the Dutch National Cup in 2019. At that time, Ten Hag was unhappy with his student’s attitude and issued a statement. reminder, but Lang reacted and appeared dissatisfied. Immediately, Ten Hag shouted: “Shut up now”, and lectured this player right on the field.
A month later, Lang was sent to Twente on loan, marking the end of his career with Ajax. By 2021, this player was sold to Club Brugge, and he just returned to the Eredivisie to play for PSV Eindhoven this summer. Notably, when moving to Brugge, Lang publicly spoke out about the conflict with Ten Hag:
“Obviously things weren’t working out between me and the coach. At Ajax, everyone loves me, except one person.”
“I wanted to leave on loan, but he was so angry that he wanted to sell me off. I never spoke to him again, nor do I want to.”
Although very talented, Lang still did not win Ten Hag’s favor because of his inappropriate attitude.
Amin Younes
Before Noa Lang was purged, Amin Younes also publicly “turned on” Ten Hag and received the same fate. The incident took place in March 2018, when Ajax won 4-1 to welcome Heerenveen at the Johan Cruyff Arena. At the end of the match, Ten Hag wanted to play Younes from the bench, but the German striker suddenly refused to play and even pouted when the camera panned to him.
Immediately, Ten Hag’s “wrath” fell on Younes. He was dropped to Ajax’s youth team and was not allowed to play another minute for the first team, before having to leave for Napoli in the summer transfer window. It is important to know that for about 2 and a half years before the conflict with Ten Hag, Younes played a relatively important role in Ajax’s squad.
Younes’ career gradually went downhill after leaving Ajax.
Later, Ten Hag himself also frankly shared about the above incident with the media:
“We still have 6 matches ahead and I want the players to be 100% motivated. A lot of problems happened around Younes that season, which is very important. However, he did not show us that he wanted to completely focus on Ajax Amsterdam.”
Huynh Phong | 13:28 September 5, 2023
