Schuurs and Arokodare: When an Ajax Defender Confesses About a Rare Target Man

Perr Schuurs walked out of Ajax's match against NEC with the face of a man who had just endured ninety deeply uncomfortable minutes. The Dutch centre-back did not open with the scoreline, nor with his team's tactics. He spoke about Tolu Arokodare. Through De Telegraaf, Schuurs offered the NEC striker a list of five qualities: strength, intelligence, height, jumping ability, and a sense of timing. When a defender enumerates five attributes about the man opposite him, he is not merely praising. He is confessing something about himself. I always read such statements slowly. Across 42 years of watching football, I have learned that a defender's praise for an opposing striker is often more trustworthy than any technical report. A player has no reason to embellish the man who just tormented him. If he says the opponent is good, either he is being honest, or he is softening his own failure. Both possibilities deserve scrutiny. In Arokodare's case, I lean toward the first. Ajax hosted NEC at the Johan Cruijff ArenA, a fixture within the Eredivisie. On paper, it was the kind of match the home side was expected to dominate in possession and impose its rhythm. But football does not run on paper, and Schuurs understood that better than anyone after facing Arokodare directly. This praise must be placed in its proper context. The Eredivisie has long been a league of young centre-backs schooled in reading the game, yet often fragile in purely physical duels. A genuine target man, one who can serve as a pivot, hold the ball on his chest, and rise to meet long passes, is a threat many Dutch backlines have never been trained to handle. When Schuurs admits Arokodare belongs to that mould, he is touching on a systemic weakness in the entire football culture, not just at Ajax. This also comes at a moment when the transfer market is revaluing the target-man position. After years of being dismissed as obsolete amid high pressing and short passing, the classic number nine is returning to negotiations. Players over 1m90 who use their bodies as weapons are being courted again. Schuurs's praise, though only a post-match remark, happens to sit squarely within that current. I have repeatedly watched young Eredivisie defenders struggle against this type of striker. Not because they lack skill, but because they lack the data to prevent it. Dutch football teaches defenders to read space, but rarely teaches them to endure a centre-forward who turns every long ball into a physical duel. Arokodare, as Schuurs describes him, is precisely the kind of player who forces a defender to shift from reading the game to enduring it. The most striking element of Schuurs's statement is the clear distinction between Arokodare and Romelu Lukaku. The Ajax defender says Arokodare is a different type: this player wants the ball on his chest or in the air far more often. This is a valuable technical observation, because it shows Arokodare is not a cheap imitation of Lukaku, but a different variant within the same family of strikers. Lukaku, in his prime, was a centre-forward who could hold up play, receive with his back to goal into his feet, and drive at speed. He was a blend of power and individual technique, a more complete striker. Arokodare, if Schuurs's account is trusted, is purer in the physical dimension: he wants the ball delivered to his chest or in the air, meaning he actively turns every long pass into a duel. This is a difference in playing philosophy, not in class. When a striker wants the ball on his chest and in the air, he is telling the whole team: play long, cross, trust my body. That is a striker dependent on supply. If NEC's midfield fails to generate enough long balls and crosses, Arokodare is isolated. If supply is good, he turns every seemingly harmless ball into a chance. This is the crux many miss when praising a target man: his value lies not in the individual, but in the relationship between him and how the team serves him. Schuurs also mentions Arokodare's intelligence, and this is the single most important detail in the entire statement. If Arokodare were merely strong and tall, he would be a physical threat that could be neutralised by tight marking and clearances. Intelligence turns him into a tactical threat. An intelligent striker knows when to jump, knows how to position his body so the defender cannot reach the ball without fouling, knows how to read the passer's intent. These are qualities that cannot be measured by physical metrics, and they are the qualities that torment defenders most. In the match where Schuurs admits he struggled, we can picture a familiar sequence: a long ball from deep, Arokodare choosing his position, using his body to shield the ball, rising first or taking it on his chest, then holding it while teammates advance. Each such moment forces the defender to choose: mark tight and risk a foul, or drop off and concede possession. No choice is perfect, and Schuurs, despite being a well-schooled centre-back, was placed in a difficult position. This explains why Schuurs's praise is not mere politeness. It is a spoken scouting report. He is telling the other Eredivisie defenders: get ready, because this striker is unlike what you usually face. From a broader tactical view, the return of the target man raises questions about defensive trends. Many teams switch to a back three to cope with target men, since three centre-backs allow one to mark tightly, one to cover, and one to track the second striker. But I still hold that this trend is often a coach's way of avoiding reputational risk rather than a genuine tactical advance. When a back four is breached, adding a centre-back is a defensive reaction, not a solution. Arokodare, by his very existence, is forcing teams to confront that question. Schuurs, as the man directly on the receiving end, likely understands better than anyone that the problem is not the number of defenders, but whether defenders have been trained to handle this type of striker. Adding a centre-back solves nothing if all three are flustered in aerial duels. Based on my experience watching matches, the target man has an interesting trait: his value is often undervalued by modern data models. Metrics like expected goals or pass completion do not capture what he does. He creates space for teammates by dragging defenders, he holds the ball so the team can push up, he turns seemingly meaningless balls into dangerous situations. It is dirty work, work the spreadsheet usually ignores. Arokodare, if he truly possesses the combination of height, strength, timing, and intelligence, is an asset big clubs should watch. But this is also a moment for caution. One match does not make a career. One compliment does not make a legend. And here is where I must rein in the reins. We have a single statement, from a single person, about a single match. The original source is De Telegraaf, aggregated by Goal.com. Details such as the match outcome or substitution timing carry no explicit source. On factual precision, source quality is medium-low. Every eye has a blind spot; the only question is whether we dare to look into it. Schuurs praises Arokodare, but Schuurs sees Arokodare from only one angle: that of the man directly facing him. He does not see how Arokodare moves off the ball far away, how he reacts when his team trails, how he endures in the second half. A defender judges a striker through direct duels, which means his assessment is limited by his own position. There is another possibility I must raise: might Schuurs be unconsciously elevating his opponent to soften his own failure? This is a familiar psychological mechanism in sport. When you lose a duel, admitting the opponent is excellent helps protect your ego. I am not saying Schuurs is lying, but readers must recognise that the praise of a man who just lost always carries two layers of meaning. Moreover, there is an identity-verification issue to check. Public records of Tolu Arokodare's career up to 2026 associate him with other clubs, not Ajax. If so, either a later transfer occurred, or there is a labelling error. This detail needs verification before building any major story around the name. Legends tell stories through reputation; I tell stories through the match record. And the match record, in this case, contains only one line: a defender admitting he struggled. One line is not enough to conclude. It is only enough to open an investigation. What is worth keeping from this story is not how good Arokodare is, but that an Ajax centre-back had to speak up about him. In a football culture that prizes technique and game-reading, Schuurs's admission is a signal that the target man still has a place, and that defenders trained to read space can still be beaten by a player who uses his body as a weapon. The match does not end when the whistle blows; it ends when we confront our own failure. Schuurs has confronted his. The remaining question is for the rest of the Eredivisie: who will be next to admit the same?