With the arrival of the information age and the era of the global village, professional football no longer held many secrets.
It was basically impossible to unearth young players by exploiting information gaps the way clubs had in the past.
Nowadays, whenever a player performed well, his name would immediately appear on the desks of major scouts and agents. Before long, European clubs would start showing interest. This made it extremely difficult for mid- and lower-level teams in Europe's professional leagues to unearth promising young talents.
Even a club like Ajax could only rely on the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Nordic regions to attract talent.
But one thing was certain: you got what you paid for.
Players with genuine ability were basically impossible to buy cheaply. The only exception was someone like Jović, whose development at a new club had run into problems and who had been sold off after a slump in form. That was a different matter.
So when Yang Yang said that he hoped to bring in a top-class center back, Van Gaal raised the transfer budget by a level, from the original five million euros to ten million.
In the Eredivisie, that was already an astronomical price for a center back, even for Ajax.
But it also showed how much Ajax had progressed and improved.
A year ago, Ajax would never have dared to make such a deal. Now, however, they had the confidence to do so, because the club's finances could support not only a ten-million-euro transfer fee, but also the salary package the player wanted, while offering him the platform of the Champions League.
That was Ajax's advantage now.
"Even with around ten million euros, bringing in a center back capable of competing at Champions League level won't be easy. At present, we