ABSTRACT
Ruben is the former Head of Talent Development of the Academy at AFC Ajax Amsterdam and co-writer of the “Plan Cruyff”. As the son of a Spanish mother and a Dutch father, Ruben unites the best of both worlds with his passion and strong analytical skills. Ruben holds a degree in Environmental Science from Wageningen University and a Master in Business Administration (MScBA) from Nijmegen Business School. During his academic and professional career, where he specialised in analysis, design, and change of organisations, Ruben spent many weekly hours training as a triathlete, leading him to a career as a trainer/coach. In 2006, he decided to become a full-time coach and said goodbye to his consultancy career. After a successful period in track and field and amateur football, he attained the position of individual trainer at the Ajax youth academy, first as a volunteering intern and then as a coach. Working together with Wim Jonk through various individual programmes, he helped improve players such as Christian Eriksen, Toby Alderweireld, and Daley Blind (all of whom later made the step to the top level of European football). In 2009, Ruben coached elite 800 metres athlete Bram Som back to world elite level. This process taught him so much about individual elite sports, that he decided to combine his knowledge on elite individual sports and organisational design and apply it to his work with Ajax’s top football talents. Consequently, he teamed up with Johan Cruyff and Wim Jonk in 2010 and took up the writing of the “Plan Cruyff”. The first thing that he did was create an explicit model on paper of Cruyff’s football vision which was implicitly in Cruyff’s head. The second thing was to connect the work that he and Wim Jonk had done to individualise the player development process, in this model. This mix of Cruyff’s inspiration and Jongkind and Jonk’s models and methods to individualise and upgrade the youth academy constituted “Plan Cruyff”.
