And as Beane did with the Oakland Athletics, Eenhoorn oversees a team that does more with less. Despite a small budget, Dutch football club AZ Alkmaar has the ability to identify and develop young talents, then promote them for big profits, while competing more sensitive groups like Ajax.
The brave club in northern Amsterdam relies on knowledge research to outperform its competitors. They have to do anything because Beane, played by actor Brad Pitt in the 2011 film “Moneyball,” recently bought a stake of about 5%.
“You have to be willing to think differently,” Eenhoorn, 52, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We give our workers at least the opportunity to be innovative.
AZ – or “Ah-Zed” for English-speaking Europeans – struck above his weight. They had beaten Dutch Ajax twice last season, but were in the position at the moment in the purpose differential when the season was declared finished due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Most clubs use the science of knowledge in those days, however, they rarely recruit Beane himself. A’s executive vice president of baseball operations. he began advising AZ in 2015, shortly after Eenhoorn took over as CEO.
The association took root in breakfast in Arizona last year. Eenhoorn, in his role as leader of the Dutch Baseball Association, visited spring education camps. AZ, who was not a successful sports executive of outdoor football, had presented the task to Eenhoorn. Beane encouraged him to take it.
“At the time, I didn’t know I enjoyed football so much,” Eenhoorn said.
Eenhoorn accepted the position, accepted Beane’s offer to consult and began to rely more on the analysis.
AZ has a stellar youth academy that values cognitive talents and personality traits in addition to soccer skills and the philosophy is for kids to get first team minutes. million euros ($ 18. 8 million).
Currents such as striker Myron Boadu, striker Calvin Stengs and midfielder Teun Koopmeiners have piqued interest from across Europe. Boadu scored on his debut for the Dutch national team.
They did recruté. AZ and paid about 500,000 euros ($588,000) for Vincent Janssen in 2015. The striker then made a run, scoring 31 goals in all competitions. After the season, AZ sold it to Tottenham for 22 million euros ($25. 9 million).
This allowed them to compete with the 3 Dutch Ajax, PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord.
“AZ works in the ultimate knowledge-driven way between the 4 clubs,” said Jesper Gudde, who manages knowledge selection at SciSports, whose customers come with clubs around the world. “It is certainly at a very high performance point. stay for themselves. It’s his intelligence and his property. »
AZ last won the Dutch name in 2009 with coach Louis van Gaal, but the team was older and had less market value.
The challenge now, Eenhoorn said, is to go further in European competitions. There are also new expectations in the Dutch league.
“Everyone starts from scratch and you have to do it again,” he said.
AZ this season with 3 consecutive draws. The club announced Beane’s news in September.
Beane already had a minority stake in English club Barnsley of the department at the time. He is also indexed as co-chairman of RedBall Acquisition Corp. , which raised $575 million in his IPO. RedBall’s presentation to the SEC lists examples of acquisitions such as sports franchises “including European clubs. “.
Football research is complicated, but Eenhoorn studied economics and was “used to finding the numbers” of his baseball career.
Eenhoorn, as a child, played “honkbal”, as he is known in the Netherlands, and then at Davidson College in North Carolina. The New York Yankees decided on him in the circular at the time of the 1990 MLB draft, decided on Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada in the next circular.
A brief stop, Eenhoorn was soft but very good on the defensive. In Triple-A Columbus, the rising star Jeter took over and Eenhoorn went to the base of the moment, the Dutchman saw time in any of the positions in the majors.
The night before Jeter made his primary league debut in May 1995, Eenhoorn played a shorts field opposite who else, Oakland A.
“I also learned so much from being part of the Yankees organization from 1990 to 1996 that I probably use it unconsciously every day,” he said.
With Eenhoorn as technical director, holland beat the Dominican Republic twice in the 2009 World Baseball Classic and the Baseball World Cup two years later.
Beane and Eenhoorn frequently.
“Even when I played, I was very interested in, okay, why other people make safe decisions,” Eenhoorn said. “So I think we have the same interests and, of course, I can’t compare my executive career to Billy’s career. “However, I am a few years younger.
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