The Kitchen Champion Division has been a nursery for national and international talents for decades and this season too, many football players with potential are walking around on the second level. Voetbalzone, the official media partner of the Kitchen Champion Division, highlights one of these talents every week, this time focusing on Jeffry Puriel, who broke through at Almere City FC in the second half of the season.
By Chris Meijer
There are not too many players who have made breakthroughs in the first team after playing their entire lives at Almere City. Not very surprising in itself, because the youngest professional club in the Netherlands has only existed in its current form since 2010. Jeffry Puriel joined the Almere City youth academy two years later, after he was picked up at amateur branch Sporting Almere. Both the now nineteen-year-old wing attacker and the club have since grown up from a shy boy to an ambitious young adult. “As a youth player I have always had the dream to play in the first team and to go to the Eredivisie”, Puriel smiles. “The fact that I can be so important to the team now gives me confidence and is a dream come true.”
It took a while for that dream to come true in the past year and a half. Puriel already appeared on the training field with the first team last season and made his debut in November 2020 at the age of seventeen in the 7-2 lost away game against SC Cambuur. In the following home game against Go Ahead Eagles he also got playing minutes, after which a period began in which he waited in vain for his chance from the reserve bench or even the stands. He then made minutes in the Under 21 of trainer Hedwiges Maduro, who has also acted as an assistant coach at the main force since December of the previous calendar year. “When he came to the Under 21, he gave me a lot of confidence. He let me play a lot and gave me tips on how I could develop as a winger. Maduro has actually made me a more complete winger. I was more of an winger who was on the side and he taught me to get more on the inside, which has been very important for my development.”
“The fact that I didn’t get minutes for a while at the first was quite difficult. I didn’t really get impatient, but I knew I had to train harder to get those minutes. You have to get over that,” Puriel is realistic. The preparation for this season presented a new opportunity. Now that I have a HAVO diploma – last season he had to miss a training because of school – Puriel had to show himself to a new trainer. Ole Tobiasen – the trainer who had made him debut – was already fired last season and eventually succeeded by Gertjan Verbeek, after Jeroen Rijsdijk finished the football season on an interim basis. “In the beginning of the preparation I played quite a lot under Verbeek, but the last two practice matches I was on the bench. You have to earn your place in the team and he liked other players better than me, so he chose them for them. As a result, I did not make very many minutes until the winter break.”
Puriel keeps Christian Rasmussen off the ball during the match between Jong Ajax and Almere City (1-3).
Puriel already reported to the coaching staff in the first half of the season with the question what he could do better to earn a starting place. “Play more mature and show more guts in your actions,” he was told. “I started working on that and that ultimately resulted in a base place,” Puriel concludes. After nine substitutions, Verbeek made way for what later turned out to be his last match as trainer of Almere City against MVV Maastricht, which turned out to be a basic place for Puriel, because Ilias Alhaft was injured during the warm-up. “Interim coach Tim Bakens then also put me on the line and Alex Pastoor came to watch those matches. In the end, he chose to leave me in the starting line-up and that shows confidence.”
Since then, Puriel has played all games as a starting player, with the exception of three games that he had to miss due to a shoulder injury. With Puriel in the first eleven, Almere City only lost five times. “Yeah, that’s a team effort. It’s not just me, of course,” he adds modestly. Puriel notices a difference between the training regimes of Verbeek and his successor Alex Pastoor. “I think under Pastoor we train more physically and conditionally. You might not say that. But it has helped us a lot in the period we are in now. For me personally it has also been a step from youth to the first team, the Kitchen Champion Division is a lot more physical and you have to act faster.”
Puriel is celebrating one of a total of four goals he has scored so far this season.
In his opinion, has Puriel completed that step from youth football to the Kitchen Champion Division? “I don’t feel like a youth player anymore, because I’ve been in the starting lineup for so many games now. And I feel that I can handle the level of the Kitchen Champion Division well,” he replies. “I didn’t necessarily become a different player because of that, because we get quite a lot of freedom under Pastoor. But I’ve gotten better at the things I already did. How would I describe myself? I am a fast player, who can pass a man, has a cross in the house and can choose good position between the lines and on the sides. I mainly watch Hazard in his Chelsea time, as a young boy you look up to his dribbling. You pick things up from there. Now I also look at Raheem Sterling, you have a lot of good wingers in top teams. I try to take things from that.”
“I want to improve my shot because I don’t shoot that often. And my running actions, I still need to improve my running at the right time. I can be a bit stronger in the duels. I am satisfied with my game and my development. Only I think I need to be a bit more effective in terms of goals and assists,” Puriel says. His tally this season stands at 4 goals and 2 assists in 27 league games. “You can make the connection: when you play a lot, you become more comfortable with the ball and you produce more assists and goals. I think you get into a rhythm, you’re going to reach a minimum level every game and you can only improve that.”
Puriel’s development is being recognized as talks are currently underway about breaking open his contract, which runs through mid-2024. “A contract extension would be a nice appreciation for the hard work I’ve put into it,” Puriel agrees with a grin. His dream to play with Almere City in the Eredivisie could just come true next season. Despite the lousy start to the season, there is still a way out, as Almere City is the number three in the fourth period. “We still have three games to go, it is still alive within the group that it is feasible. I have the feeling that it is there, the atmosphere within the group is good and there is trust.”
Name: Jeffry Puriel
Date of birth: 16 november 2002
Club: Almere City
Position: attacker
Strengths: speed, dribble, agility
Voetbalzone is the official media partner of the Kitchen Champion Division
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