Another great job by Patrick Vieira in not just getting out of the group like last year but convincingly winning it this year. We should probably just play these lot tonight.
Posted Nov 25, 2014, 5:13 PM UTC
Didn't they hammer Bayern last season too and it was established Bayern don't give a fuck about that tournament?
Yes and Bayern's youth teams aren't the strongest unfortunately. I also remember reports of multiple Bundesliga teams complaining of youth CL tournaments from last year.
To be fair your youth team has nearly all German players, Man City's is made up of players from around the world. Who's national team has a lack of world class players and a limited pool to pick from, certainly not yours.
16-1 in the last 4 meetings which includes a 0-0.
We are killing it at the youth level and with some English kids as well.
I want to see some of this holistic stuff happening now...
I'm sorry, I don't want to take anything away from a very nice win. Quality is quality. But you started 4 English players. That's extremely low for a youth team. Bayern has 5 non-Germans in their whole squad, you have 19.
(edit: miscounted. Gets weird with all those dual-nationals)
This was the team:
Gunn - Scottish, his Dad played for Norwich City and has lived here all his life. Good young keeper who can take the third spot. Not sure about his long term prospects here and it is written in the stars that he should play for Norwich as his Dad is in the Hall of Fame there.
Bossaerts - Belgian, first came over at 12 but signed full time as a 15 year old and has been here ever since. Plays RB and CB. Him and Denayer had a good partnership before we loaned Denayer to Celtic and swapped Maffeo and him around. Expect a loan from him next year to see what he is made of at a higher level. Uncertain. Also, this lad isn't really our first choice and Ash Smith-Brown who is English is.
Maffeo - Spanish lad, signed at 15. Has had a positional change, not really sure if he can step up.
Angelino - Sometimes called Jose Tasende. Spanish, signed a couple of years back as a first year scholar. I keep saying he will be a winger in the future as he is too attack minded but they have kept him as a left back. Think the staff are high on him as a potential first team squad member.
Adarabioyo - English centre back and Mancunian. Potential future England Captain and the brightest hope in our Academy. Made his debut for our U18s at 14. Captained them at 16. Moved to U21s at 17. Nailed on for first team squad if his development continues as it has been.
Bryan - English midfielder, joined City at 11. Would take a big step up for him to become a first team regular. He isn't bad, he just doesn't stand out a lot for me.
Ambrose - Young French lad we signed at 15. Another nailed on for the first team. I'd probably give him some minutes already to be honest as he's a different player from Pozo who we keep putting on our bench.
Ntcham - The other French import, joined us at around 15 or 16 and has had mixed development. Potential but probably someone we will sell for a few million.
Byrne - Irish midfielder. Vieira likes comparing him to Paul Scholes in his distribution and movement. I'm quite hot on him but not sure if he can make the big jump once he has less time on the ball. A wait and see'er.
Celina - Norwegian lad who is a bright spark but a bit on the weak side. Can't see him displacing a Nasri or Silva but might be worth a couple of million in a few years.
Barker - English, splits a lot of opinions. Some think he's an old fashioned direct English winger who likes a shot so we should gamble on him in the first team for a cup game. I think he's an old fashioned direct English winger who likes a shot so we should sell him to somebody else.
We also have a bunch of our promising lads at this level out on loan like Devante Cole.
It's our most international youth group and we'd be lucky to get 3 players out of it anywhere near the first team squad. Our much more promising group is our U16s who have been together for several years and have won the league at every age group they've gone through, and many are local lads not just English. That's really the people were hoping to come in and benefit most from the new Academy rather than the 18/19 year olds who we're catching the tail end of.
Barker - English, splits a lot of opinions. Some think he's an old fashioned direct English winger who likes a shot so we should gamble on him in the first team for a cup game. I think he's an old fashioned direct English winger who likes a shot so we should sell him to somebody else.
That was my favourite part.
I know they're different types of players but how would you rank Adarabioyo, Angelino, Pozo and Ambrose? They're the ones I've been keeping an eye on. How do they compare to Rekik, Lopez and Dennis Suarez who were the last batch of top talents in the academy?
Also, would you happen to know how Faour and Brahim Abdelkader Diaz are doing? Still part of the younger setups but I've watched a bit of their play and they look impressive
I think Rekik and Lopes are going to fit somewhere in the first team squad after their loan periods so they are a good measuring stick.
Angelino is definitely behind them in terms of readyness and despite us putting him on the bench a lot for the first team, Pozo isn't there yet either in my opinion. Talent wise Lopes is probably the best player of the bunch followed by Pozo then Rekik then Angelino.
Ambrose and Adarabioyo are two who are potentially better than Rekik and Lopes but we really need to see more of how they perform on a loan deal before we can get too excited about them though it's hard with Adarabioyo as he is so damn talented.
Brahim is hard to get proper information about as he is still a kid and City don't like putting too much out there for that type of age.
Faour is now in our U18s so is "fair game" so to speak regarding coverage on the site and on Youtube. He's a belting player though not quite first choice yet as he is a young player for the U18s and is battling it out with another one of our more promising players. He scores a fair bit though I'm most impressed with his passing ability. He reminds me quite a lot of Dzeko in that he can go and play the channels and put through a wonder ball to an on running attacker and he has that big frame aswell to muscle people around. We always put out U18 highlights on Youtube so you can see more of him there.
do you think celina will play for norway? hasnt he been capped for kosovo? not too familiar with that situation
The lad wants to play for Kosovo but UEFA don't recognise them so there is no barriers between playing for Norway or them
Devante Cole will be brilliant if we can keep him for the season. He has so much potential. He misses too many chances and has quiet spells in games. He's probably the fastest player In the league. He may need to get a perm move away he's 19 and will want first team football chances next season at earliest. That's the bench anyway. We'd take him gladly though :)
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Gunn - Scottish
Was that deliberate? I know his Dad's Scottish but Angus plays for England under-19s. Is he thinking of switching?
No I think I just messed him up. I seem to recall he was born in Scotland but spent his whole life in England (and we were talking about nationalities). After looking it up he might have been born in Norwich
Our U16 just won the league with around 9 Mancunians in it.
I think we'll be fine.
who really cares anyway? Club Football is a global sport at this point. Include as many from as many places. The one thing i really respect about City is how wide the wings are spread for youth teams. You even have an academy in my home country (Ghana).
who really cares anyway?
Anyone who is English perhaps?
Yeah, we're big on Academy recruitment and this seems to be one of the big benefits City were looking for with setting up all of these Clubs around the world into one group - the ability to share player databases and the like.
We seem to always be keeping tabs on Ghana. Not only did we have a few Ghanians in our youth teams recently but we visit on a semi regular basis too. They did a video series when they went last year:
I am talking about the youth set up in general. Our youth teams are doing well at every level.
We're very well represented at England Intenational level as well.
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I just worry how many will successfully make it through to the first team?
I think there are a good few lads with really bright futures, hopefully some of them with us, so I don't worry about that. What worries me is throwing them in at the deep end too early.
I can handle digs about us having no English players, but I don't want to see us putting out a bunch of kids before they up to it and getting slaughtered on the the pitch for it.
Well it's a massive step up to the first team but i'd like to see us take a leaf out of Wenger's book and played those coming through more in the League Cup.
Perhaps Silva wouldn't be fucking injured !
However, I can only assume they're not ready as those that aren't on loan are seen every day in training.
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https://twitter.com/FCBayernEN/status/537295666079629312
They've won in Moscow and in Rome, but can #FCBayern do it on a cold Tuesday night in Manchester? #MCFCFCB #UCL
The hashtag MCFCFCB is so fucking retarded it makes me hate hashtags even more.
wow, so there really are people who "hate" hashtags ? Jesus you guys are angry
Not hashtags per se, more like these dipshit hashtags #justwentothegym #workingoutonasunday #latergoingoutwiththeboys #writingmyentirepostinahashtag.
Hashtags were intended as a keyword so you know what a conversation is about, and stuff like MCFCFCB is unreadable and just argh.
#thereisnoneedtobeupset
They have just angered the seniors
What does "youth" mean in terms of age range? Is it U18?
U19
Good to know, thanks man
Exact opposite is going to happen on the main stage though.
EDIT: I'm an idiot.
eh?
;-)
Hope for the English future?
Not too much with this team outside of Tosin Adarabioyo. It's our next generation who seem to be the Great White Hope at City
Possibly. A lot our players are in the England youth set up at all levels.
didnt we also beat them 6-0 in the first leg
It's a bollocks tournament. The top youth teams include Villa (who won the next gen European trophy before they were no longer invited), Middlesborough, Soton, Man Utd etc
Seems like we have to revenge our boys, right?
edit: Yikes!
Rache.
It is worrying that 1 episode of Sherlock allows me to remember more German than my German GCSE
Thanks for getting it.
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Nien