Babel ready to re-kick off his form versus City

It is just five years since former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez paid Ajax £12million for the promising Dutch forward Ryan Babel.



On Wednesday at the Amsterdam Arena, Babel faces Manchester City in the Champions League hoping to restart a career that has taken him back to his formative club.

The fact that Babel, still only 25, is back at Ajax is appropriate.





Offered just a one-year contract in the summer after an unhappy spell at German club Hoffenheim, Babel, originally a product of the famed Ajax youth academy, is having to prove himself once more as he looks to earn an extended career here in north Holland.

‘I have made mistakes,’ admitted Babel. ‘But, at 25, it’s not too late to give my career a good twist.

‘I still think I can fulfil my potential and live up to what people thought I would become.

‘I am mentally stronger and I know how to deal with certain situations and different people. The people at Ajax see that.’

Babel was just 19 when Benitez took him to Anfield after seeing him excel in the European Under 21 Championship in the summer of 2007.



In that tournament, Babel played as a central striker. At Liverpool he was asked to learn a wider role and he struggled. Discipline was a problem too and as his place at Anfield became gradually more uncertain, so did his future in England.

By the time he was sold to Hoffenheim in the summer of 2011, Babel’s stock had plummeted. A season in Germany brought him regular football but he was unhappy enough to buy himself out of his contract.

Eventually, after other targets such as the Moroccan Oussama Assaidi and Luciano Narsingh proved too expensive, Ajax coach Frank de Boer took what most observers in Dutch football considered a gamble in bringing one of the national sport’s lost souls back home.

The Ajax team that will face City here tonight is expected to feature just three of the outfield players who faced Manchester United in the Europa League knock-out stages last February.

Short of money, Ajax are once again relying on their De Toekomst academy for talent and, if you forget the five-year hiatus, Babel is seen as part of that.



Having played seven times this season for a team that is unbeaten domestically but sits bottom of its Champions League group, Babel knows he still has questions to answer. Many, for example, think him big-headed and arrogant.

His Dutch career is no longer a priority. Coach Louis van Gaal is not a fan and Babel, despite his 42 caps, has played once in two years.

What is more important tonight is proving a point to those who still doubt him.

‘I don’t think people in England ever saw the best of me,’ he said. ‘For a player to really be at his best you have to give him a certain confidence, but I did not feel appreciated by some people at Liverpool.



‘Ajax have given me a chance again to prove myself and I’m happy for that.

‘The City game is a good platform for me to show the people who doubt Ryan Babel what I can do.’