Ajax’s new football affairs director Sven Mislintat is looking forward to working with Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. He explained during his introductory interview on Tuesday what role the 39-year-old former top striker will play.
Mislintat explains what Huntelaar’s new role will be at Ajax
Huntelaar has been responsible for the transfer policy at Ajax since the forced departure of Marc Overmars in February last year, together with the recently departed Gerry Hamstra. Mislintat has already spoken to the former international. He started, “Klaas-Jan Huntelaar has done an excellent job in recent weeks. He’s already shown me some things and I’m convinced of that.”
Mislintat expects a pleasant collaboration with Huntelaar. “Klaas-Jan is still young, but ambitious. He is responsible for Jong Ajax, is working on the bridge between youth and the first team and will report to me on that, but it is not the case that I am above him. I don’t see it that way, we do it together. We’re going to talk about football every day, about the development of talents from the youth academy,” he said.
Mislintat wants to take advantage of the fact that Huntelaar and general manager Edwin van der Sar know Ajax well. “The experience of Klaas-Jan and Edwin is very important to me. At Borussia Dortmund I worked in a similar way with Michael Zorc, at VfB Stuttgart with Thomas Hitzlsperger,” said the German, who expects some bullying with Huntelaar when Schalke 04 and Dortmund play against each other.
Mislintat about nickname: “It’s not true that I’m just about the data”
Sven Mislintat does not think that his nickname Data German does justice to his way of working. “It’s not true that I’m just about data,” Ajax’s new director of football affairs said during his introductory interview on Tuesday.
Before joining Borussia Dortmund as a scout, Mislintat worked as a match analyst for a company that supplied special tactical cameras to various Bundesliga clubs in a time when data was scarce. “If you call me a Data German, you’re actually talking about only ten to fifteen percent of my work,” fifty-year-old Mislintat explains why he doesn’t agree with that nickname. “Data is not leading, but it is important. We can’t watch 50 matches of one player. That is too expensive and impossible.”
“The traditional way of working is still there, with live scouting, video analysis, personal conversations and discussions with people about certain players. And yes, there are dates. You’re also crazy if you don’t use data. Over the years, data has gotten better and better. Does anyone have seven successful passes out of nine? So is that good or bad? Today we have the means to zoom in much deeper into what a player can do. As a result, you can, as it were, look 360 degrees around a player or team,” he concludes.
