Strikers are the most recognized player around the pitch being the ones praised when the team wins or reproached when the team losses or isn’t successful.
With the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski being two of the best strikers in the history of the sport, it looks like their time playing is shortly coming to an end as time goes by, yet we still don’t know who the next Ronaldo or Robert Lewandowski could be.
To this day there’s only one guy that can fill the boots of both these legendary players, and that as we know is Erling Haaland. But there are many up-and-coming players who could soon join the Norwegian at the top of world football.
A great example of a player with incredible amounts of potential is Myron Boadu, the Dutch striker who has made a transfer to AS Monaco this summer and is one of the biggest football talents in the world.
However his path to the top is very interesting starting at an early age and not joining an Eredivisie academy until the age of 12, all of this while rejecting an offer from one of the Premier League’s big-six teams.
Early Years
Born on the 14th of January 2001 in the beautiful city of Amsterdam, Myron has always been surrounded by football since the day he was born, growing up in a house 4 minutes away from the Johan Cruyff Arena.
Boadu heard the roar of the Ajax fans every matchday from his bedroom, this made him fall in love with football with the hopes of one day playing in front of the same crowd he heard every weekend from the comfort of his home.
His first steps into the football world were alongside his bigger brother Reginald who took him out on the streets to play against other children for countless hours, when they couldn’t go outside they played in the corridor of their home, not playing football was never an option for Myron.
Being born close to Ajax’s stadium was a huge impulse for Boadu to fall in love with football, prioritizing his love for the sport instead of school.
After seeing his brother join their local team he decided to do the same and Boadu joined his hometown team FFC Bijlmer where he would start his fantastic career to success.
At just the age of 12, he decided that school wasn’t for him and focused even more on football, moving this time to SC Buitenveldert one of the biggest football academies in Amsterdam.
In his second season with SC Buitenveldert is when things started to change for Boadu. Big teams were aware of his talent and had been paying very close attention to the youngster, although AZ, Almere City, and FC Utrecht had shown interest in him he decided to try his luck with his beloved Ajax.
Ajax was desperate to sign the young striker and offered him a trial and an internship so that they could have an even closer look at him. Things were going as planned, his performances were good, and he did well in training, or so did he think.
After wanting to sign the kid before they offered him a trial, it came as a shock that they rejected him for the academy. Myron was shocked because he thought he had done well enough to join his boyhood club, but some internal unknown decision was made, and he wasn’t offered the opportunity to play for the Ajax academy.
When he arrived home from the trial he burst into tears, his beloved Ajax had rejected him but that still didn’t stop his parents from encouraging him to continue knowing that a new opportunity would arrive.
Lifetime Opportunity at AZ
It is said that life gives those who deserve it a second chance, that’s in fact what happened with Boadu. After being rejected by Ajax, AZ Alkmaar decided to give the young boy a chance, it work out perfectly for both the player and the team.
After spending a few years playing climbing-up teams in the academy at the age of 15 he got promoted to the AZ reserves team as a reward for his incredible performances through the years, how did he respond to being promoted? Well, he scored on his debut in the third division playing against people several years older than him.
Boadu played wonderfully for the reserves and helped the team to achieve promotion to the second division. Myron was not only showing how good he was technically but how mentally strong he was and how much of a leader he was at just 16 years old.
After scoring 6 goals in 9 games at 16, AZ kept him on the reserves team so that he could make the jump to the first team sooner than expected, but bad luck stroke again and Boadu couldn’t play for almost the whole of the season due to a knee injury.
However, his reward came in the last match of the season where he would make his debut for AZ Alkmaar’s first team playing a total of 23 minutes, all this coming from an injury that had kept him away from the pitch for almost a whole season.
First Team and National Team Debut
After making his debut for the first team on the last matchday of the season, Boadu was now a first-team player, after coming from a knee injury Boadu wanted to eat the world, and so he did his first few matches.
Boadu’s season started well scoring his first goal in the Eredivisie in the opening match of the season, he would go on to score 3 goals and give 2 assists in just five games, it’s worth noting that in 4 of those 5 games he played as a starter.
But things changed yet again for Boadu as he got an ankle injury against Feyenoord that kept him yet another season away from the pitch, things didn’t look good for Boadu as his career could be over sooner than later.
But yet again he returned even better from the injury and had a breakout season after returning from injury.
Boadu was unstoppable throughout the whole season scoring a total of 14 goals and giving 8 assists in just 24 games on the Eredivisie. Not only that but in his first season playing European football, he scored 4 goals and gave 2 assists in 7 games played in the Europa League. Boadu was already making it to the front of the newspapers and soon bigger teams would start to show some interest in the youngster.
It’s no mystery that playing like that for a season would result in a National Team call-up, and it did because on the 19th of November of 2019 Ronald Koeman would give Myron Boadu the opportunity to play for the Netherlands, yes he only has one cap to his name, but he also has one goal which means that his statistics with the National Team are one goal per game.
Moving To Monaco
After a brilliant 2020/21 season where Boadu scored 15 goals in 31 games in the Eredivisie, big teams came knocking on the door to acquire Myron for their squad.
Boadu had rejected Arsenal in the past preferring to be a starter for AZ rather than the third choice behind Aubameyang and Lacazette, that was a very intelligent move from him and his career.
However, a new and great opportunity appeared, a move to Monaco where he would play alongside Ben Yedder who is one of the best and most underrated strikers in world football.
Boadu decided to make the move to Monaco and the 17-million-euro move was confirmed.
However things haven’t worked out for Boadu since joining only managing to find the back of the net once in the 19 Ligue 1 matches he’s played, maybe the jump was too early, or he just isn’t adapting well to French football.
Nevertheless, there’s still hope that Boadu can be the next big thing once he finds his form in Monaco.
Style Of Play
Boadu is a deadly striker who’s lethal when reaching the opposition goal. Ever since his debut, he’s shown how easy it is for him to find the back of the net controlling one-on-one situations perfectly.
Capable of playing with both feet, Boadu is also an unpredictable player that can finish with both of his legs which makes it difficult to defend him.
But what makes him stand out from other strikers is the ability to find spaces between defenders moving constantly to try and get one-on-one situations where he can put the ball on the back of the net.
