The Ajax youth academy will hold a training camp for Russian kids in the Moscow Region in the summer, with the prospect of making it a permanent fixture.

Established a hundred years ago, Ajax are one of the world's most successful football teams and also one of the biggest brands in the game.

The Amsterdam side has won 31 domestic championships and the European Cup four times, including three consecutive years from 1971 and the now Champions League, in 1995.

The club is renowned not only for this impressive record, but also the attack-minded philosophy they apply.

“Our fans like attractive football,” Henri van der Aat, Ajax commercial director, told RT. “And attractive football to us is playing in the opponents’ half, having a lot of the possession, being creative and doing a lot of attacking. That’s our philosophy because that’s what we think the kids like.”

“For Ajax, winning isn’t the most important, the style of football is most important – an attractive, beautiful game,” Derk Sauer, Ajax aide-de-camp in Russia and CIS, added.

One of the club's recipes for success has always been the Ajax youth academy. The breeding ground of Dutch football has unearthed numerous stellar talents such as the legendary Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Over the past decade it has become harder for Ajax to compete in the top European tournaments with home grown players being lured away by richer leagues. But the talent factory never stops producing excellent footballers.

“It they don’t leave when you’re 17 or 18, but leave at 25 then we can develop them really well – so it’s good for the player,”Alex Gernaert, Ajax youth coach, stressed. “We have to let them go and that’s no problem. But we want them to stick longer with the club. ”

The traditions at the famed academy remain the same as they've been since the late 1960s, when the Dutch created the concept of ‘Total Football’.

Ajax strives to keep their way of playing football recognizable: attractive, offensive-minded, creative and fast, with always using three forwards, so the young players can get accustomed to the Ajax style.

After establishing a club in South Africa in 1999, the Amsterdam outfit have set their sights on Russia for a training camp. Using the best Dutch coaches the camp will be operating next summer forty kilometres west of Moscow, with the prospect of a permanent Ajax academy in Russia sometime in the future.

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