Youth League Knock Out Round

twosips said:
Who gets the b-teams?

Well we know the obvious choices, for the rest there would be some sort of system. Things like this should not hold back a progressive idea that has done well in countries that have developed superior World Cup winning footballers than our own.

Pedro, Busquets (who Pep promoted from the Juvenil A team... a natural progression into the professional game, playing the same style while not being ready for the top league yet) and Thiago Alacantra were in Pep Guardiola's Barcelona B side in 2007 as well as players who didn't make it at Barca but have gone on to have good careers in top flights like Xavi Torres, Marc Valiente, Iago Falque and Jeffren Suarez.

A City B team would see players promoted from the U18s into League Three/Two, playing the exact same style as the U18s and first team, but at a lower level in the professional game (which, even at such a low level, is much more intense than the poor and lifeless U21 league). Then the gems could step up and the rest would be well equipped for the professional game. B teams could even sign players of a similar style to be mainstays there, like Bayern's B team is captained by Tobias Schweinsteiger, older brother of Bastian Schweinsteiger. Players like that can serve as role models and bring some maturity to teams full of youngsters. This isn't really an option in the U21 league because while you're allowed overage players, none want to play there full-time.

It's no surprise that City, being one of the few Premier League teams run by men from another league, were one of the few to back the B team idea and weren't prejudiced by tired old 'traditions' that wouldn't have even been impacted much anyway, since they'd have introduced a new league rather than forcibly relegated clubs.
 
To be honest i didnt realise about the league 3 thing. That's pretty fair enough.

I guess we'd eventually find that those ten teams would spread out too as some go down and others up.

I was thinking though what would happen if someone else wanted a b-team? Why only those ten forever?

Guess you could have it that its reassessed every 3 or 4 years or something.
 
LoveCity said:
Somewhat off-topic but I'm watching Real Madrid vs. Porto in the UEFA Youth League and neither impresses me as much as City's U19 team has so far. Countless misplaced passes and bad decisions made. Perhaps we really do have one of the best academies in Europe, it's just the final stages of development where we and other English teams seem to struggle/fail while these clubs send their kids into the B teams in professional setups.


Whilst I do believe our u19 team is one of the best academy teams in Europe my only concern is burn out.

Last season we were on course to winning 3 trophies last season in the u21 PL title, UEFA Youth League and PL league cup, towards this time last season we started to collapse a little and our form was very patchy, that for me was a mix of the pressure of potentially wining a treble but also the intensity in which Vieira has out lads playing at.

I think Vieira has his sights set out on winning the CL competition as it will give him relatively big credibility around Europe as a young up and coming coach.

It would be great for the players as well because it will attract big clubs to come in and ask for loans, we need more situations like Lopes at Lille where our young lads will be testing themselves against top flight players.
 
yakzson_ctid.Si said:
ColinLee said:
SlimShadyRus said:
Why would Schalke stream the match they play at Mini-had?
Because if they did stream their home games there was always a slight chance they might have got permission to film it at the Mini-Etihad. Sadly it looks like that's not happening.
I'm hopeful City have plans for a City TV channel at some point although I suppose the numbers wouldn't support that right now.

If you can't make the game. Manchester City U19 v Schalke U19 24/02 3:45pm Eurosport HD
AMAZING NEWS!!! Thanks mate! I'd attend if I was in Manchester.

german teams suck this season, especially at youth level, (their u19 team lost some matches in their Ycl group, u21's were smashed at the Mini-Had and u17s finished last in their group at Al Kass cup, although it was a pretty hard one).
 

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