Heerkens on his chance with Ajax first team: “Of course you’re disappointed when the choice doesn’t fall on you”

Joeri Heerkens is disappointed that he has not been named Ajax’s new first-choice goalkeeper. After the serious injury to Vitezslav Jaros, head coach Fred Grim had to choose between new signing Maarten Paes and Heerkens. The latter will continue to play his matches for Jong Ajax.

“Yes, of course you’re disappointed when the choice doesn’t fall on you,” Heerkens admitted to ESPN after the match between FC Emmen and Jong Ajax. “But for me, it’s now about continuing to do what I’ve been doing over the past weeks and months with Jong Ajax. Then that opportunity will come naturally. It was definitely a case of swallowing the disappointment, but I’ve had so many setbacks in my career that I can deal with it. I always work hard, and I think that’s the most important thing.”

With Jong Ajax, Heerkens played out a goalless draw against FC Emmen. The Amsterdam reserves kept a clean sheet for the second match in a row. This brings the tally to four points from three matches under new coach Óscar García, who took over from Willem Weijs. “In training, the focus is now a bit more on defending. You can see that things are going much better since the arrival of the new coach.”

“We’re very happy about that. We hope we can keep this up. Of course, it’s easy to talk after keeping two clean sheets, but you have to continue like this and remain consistent. It’s great to see how the boys fought. They were very important with their crosses and kept throwing themselves in front of the ball.”