FC Volendam are top of the Dutch second tier having won all of their games.It may be surprising to find that the legacy of the legendary Dutch player is inspiring a promotion charge in the Netherlands' second tier.The staff responsible for implementing the ideas of Louis van Gaal during the 'Velvet Revolution' were brought in by the Volendam manager.The reform of the Dutch giants' structure and academy system called 'Plan Cruyff' was credited with producing the likes of Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt, with the focus on playing attractive football, creating a performance culture and developing young players through individual programmes.The project in Volendam, a fishing village 18 miles north of the Johan Cruyff Arena, is vastly different than the one in Amsterdam.'The Other Orange' have been promoted to the Eredivisie nine times, but have not played top-flight football since 2009.Volendam was in serious trouble when they called on Jonk and his team, who had left Ajax in December 2015, due to disagreements with the board.Jonk was tasked with bringing supporters back to Kras Stadium.The former Netherlands international says that they were sitting at the bar and watching the beer tap."I wanted to play forward, defend forward, play the three-second rule, third-man options - all those principles to get the players used to what attractive football and attacking football means." It is nice words, but there is more behind them.On his first day in the job, Jonk showed his squad videos of the top clubs in the world and talked about positioning and the ideas he wanted to get across in training.Jonk said that the first thing the players said to him was "but we are not Barcelona, we are not Manchester United or Manchester City".Jonk's side are on course for promotion, seven points clear of the pack, after 21 games, and have only lost once all season.Jonk says that if we win 2-1, everyone is complaining because we need a three or four-goal difference. There is a lot to learn.After starting his career at Volendam, Jonk went on to play for Inter Milan, PSV and Wednesday.Jasper van Leeuwen said the next task was to develop a more sustainable transfer policy, focusing on discovering high-potential talents both inside and outside the club.The best example of this was Micky van de Ven, a young defender who was overlooked in the under-19s, who flourished under the new regime and was sold to Wolfsburg for 3.15m last summer after Volendam won a legal battle with agent Mino Raiola over the transferThe first two years of the plan were to create value. "That was the same thing we did in Amsterdam, find the big talents either within the club or outside.""Later on in the third year, we added some more experienced players to really go for the promotion."Ruben says that there was no scouting department, or even an office for academy coaches, and that everything from talent development to training methods needed to change."We had to spot, select and train a whole new army of coaches and scouts", explains the director of Academy and Cooperations at Volendam.We needed to find people who were open to this vision and teach them how to do it.We wanted to show that if you work for the beauty of the game, you also get the results.It is not the same thing to show it in a club with a small budget as it is to show it in a big club.Producing academy prospects and scouting the right talent is key for Volendam, who are also open to giving "damaged goods" a second chance and have an average first-team squad age of just 22.6 years.Van Leeuwen says that if the level is high, he is not going to Volendam. He will go to a team that sees the talent in the boy.Many people can judge actuality, but they can't measure potential. The key is that.If you are good at assessing the potential level of a player, you can take him in before everyone discovers him, and you can also develop him and get into a steep growth curve.Inter Milan sent several players to the club on loan because they were impressed with the way Volendam nurtures young talent.'We have some bigger talents'.The Dutch second tier has confirmed the trio's beliefs that scouting well and creating the right environment can help young players reach their potential.If you scout well, nature is taken care of because you know you have very talented boys in the academy and around the first team."Then nurture comes into play." How do you develop them? Nature will not give us out of the 25,000 citizens of Volendam with 10 exceptional talents.If you find talents that were overlooked somewhere else, if you dive into their characteristics, background, and vision, you will get more information.If you take them in, you give them a podium, give them minutes, give them confidence, develop them individually and make them feel safe and appreciated, we see they can really explode, even more than we thought."You would never expect Volendam's talents to be bigger than those of Ajax, but I can say that there are some with us that are bigger talents."If a smaller club can beat bigger clubs by working better, that is a hopeful thing. It is more rewarding for me.Taking Volendam to the next level.If Volendam wins promotion this season, the goal is to survive in the top flight next term and become an established Eredivisie club.Jonk says that if they go there, they have another challenge to contend with. A new process begins after that is more difficult.The new stadium will be shaped like a boat and will need to double the club's budget.He says that they are thinking about strategies to sell the story and connect with sponsors who can relate to the idea of sustainable development.Volendam is a cult town in Holland and there are 1.5 million tourists every year from across the world, so there is huge potential to draw bigger crowds than just your own citizens.We know we can only take it if we are in the Eredivisie and connected to the style Wim is teaching the players - we think that combination and the storytellers of all these talents who go a long way after being in Volendam, that can really help."We just need time, support and people to believe in it.
