UEFA Youth League

SirAF

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I didn't see a topic about this. Excellent news if you ask me, I've always wanted to see an official youth CL tournament! Think this will be a good experience for our players.




http://www.manutd.com/en/Players-An...r-united-to-compete-in-uefa-youth-league.aspx

Manchester United will compete in the inaugural UEFA Youth League following the draw in Monaco.
The Reds have entered the new tournament and will play against Shakhtar Donetsk, Bayer Leverkusen and Real Sociedad as the format shadows the main competition at the group stage.
Nicky Butt is set to take charge of the Under-19 squad, having worked with this age-group during the pre-season. The league is based around January birthdays with no concessions.
"It will be a team taken from two sides – the Under-21s and the Under-18s," explained Academy coach Paul McGuinness to ManUtd.com.
"We have to make sure we get it right which won’t be easy. It will be a challenge but I’m sure the games will be really good experience for the boys."
 
Great news. I thought when this was proposed we didnt want to take part in it?
 
Was the next gen organized by UEFA though? I thought it was just a random youth comp.
 
This shadows the Champions League in the group phase. It should be brilliant. A shame that the 'best' youth teams don't compete against each other, but it should still be fantastic.
 
UEFA Youth League rules:

Players must be born on or after 1 January 1995.
No club may have more than 20 players on the list before a match.
As a minimum ten places on the list are reserved exclusively for players who have been eligible to play for the club concerned for an uninterrupted two-year period directly prior to the start of the competition.
A player may not play in the competition for more than one club in the course of the same season.
Any player who is fielded in three or more UEFA Champions League or UEFA Europa League matches (as of the group stages of those competitions) in the course of the 2013/14 season ceases to be eligible to play in the UEFA Youth League.
 
So our strongest side would be something like this then ?

Gollini - Rowley, Grimshaw, McNair, Weir - Harrop, Pearson, Rothwell, Pereira - Januzaj, Byrne

Ioannou, Wilson and Goss the other 3 I can imagine playing if we field our strongest side
 
Fixture list announced:

UEFA Youth League fixtures

17/9/13: Bayer Leverkusen (H)
16.00 BST, Salford City Stadium

2/10/13: Shakhtar Donetsk (A)
13.00 BST, Olimpiyskiy Stadium

23/10/13: Real Sociedad (H)
14.00 BST, Salford City Stadium

TBC: Real Sociedad (A)
TBC, Zubleta Training Ground

TBC: Bayer Leverkusen (A)
TBC, Ulrich-Haberland Stadium

9/12/13: Shakhtar Donetsk (H)
19:00 GMT, Leigh Sports Village
 
Really, we already knew the fixture list. More like timings.
 
I wonder if this is why Januzaj wasn't named in the senior CL squad? Though the rules suggest he could play 2 group games and still be eligible.

I'm looking forward to these.
 
Reds name Under-19 squad

Adnan Januzaj has been included in the Manchester United squad for the upcoming UEFA Youth League.
The Brussels-born prodigy is set to lend his talent and experience to Nicky Butt's Under-19 group and will wear the No10 shirt in the inaugural European competition.
Fellow Belgian Andreas Pereira also features, along with last term's Young Player of the Year Ben Pearson and Academy top scorer James Wilson. Italian keeper Pierluigi Gollini will wear the No1 jersey.

Players can be added or removed from the squad up to 48 hours before any of the group matches against Bayer Leverkusen, Shakhtar Donetsk and Real Sociedad.

Squad: 1. Pierluigi Gollini (GK), 2. James Weir, 3. Louis Rowley, 4. Paddy McNair, 5. Liam Grimshaw, 6. Ben Pearson, 7. Sam Byrne, 8. Joe Rothwell, 9. James Wilson, 10.Adnan Januzaj, 11.Andreas Pereira, 12.Sean Goss, 13.Joel Castro Pereira (GK), 14.Ashley Fletcher, 15.Josh Harrop, 16.Callum Evans, 17.Matthew Willock, 18.Nicholas Ioannou, 19.Ben Barber, 20.Kieran O'Hara.
 
As with last season in the Academy, we'll have a exciting team to watch with lots of attacking talent, but few specialist defenders as Grimshaw, Evans and McNair are midfielders and Weir also who may fill in at RB. Is Donald Love injured? I've not seen his name around recently? Janko would also qualify by age too I'm guessing?

GK: Gollini, JC Pereira, O'Hara
DF: Rowley, Grimshaw, McNair, Evans, Ioannou, Barber
MF: Rothwell, Pearson, Goss, Harrop, Willock, Pereira, Januzaj, Weir
ST: Wilson, Byrne, Fletcher
 
I'm really excited for this, should be a great experience for the kids. Hopefully Januzaj really takes his opportunity to showcase his talent.
 
Really exciting squad. Slightly worrying on the defensive front but whatever back four we opt for will at least have Pearson in front of them.
 
The list can be amended at any time up to 2 days before a game so can be changed later
 
From manutd.com: Extended highlights of United's opening game in the UEFA Youth League against Bayer Leverkusen will be screened on MUTV at 23.00 BST on Tuesday night.

I also read earlier that Eurosport had bought the rights so hopefully we can see it live (I'll be at work but can always record it if it is on).

Eurosport awarded UEFA Youth League media rights - UEFA.com

International broadcaster Eurosport have been awarded media rights to UEFA's new competition for young footballers, the UEFA Youth League, for the period between 2013 and 2015 with the first live game on Tuesday between Manchester United FC and Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

The opening fixture list is confirmed

Eurosport has been awarded the exclusive European media rights to the first-pick match each matchweek. In this respect, Eurosport will produce the first-pick matches (including the semi-finals and final) and broadcast them across its pan-European network of channels (Eurosport or Eurosport 2). As from the semi-finals, the UEFA Champions League rights-holders in the countries of the participating teams will have the possibility to acquire the media rights to the matches co-exclusively with Eurosport.

Eurosport is the first official broadcast partner of the UEFA Youth League. However, UEFA Champions League rights-holders will also have the opportunity to produce and broadcast UEFA Youth League matches.

Commenting on the awarding of these rights, Guy-Laurent Epstein, marketing director of UEFA Events SA, said: "UEFA is delighted to announce Eurosport as the first rights-holder of the 2013-15 UEFA Youth League. UEFA is looking forward to working with Eurosport in order to build and promote this newly-created competition. Eurosport's wide reach and promotional and production expertise are key assets for the exposure of the competition, and as a long-term partner of UEFA's other youth competitions, Eurosport is a natural fit for the UEFA Youth League."

The first match to be produced and broadcast live on Eurosport will be the encounter between Manchester United and Leverkusen on 17 September at 17.00CET.

The 32 clubs that have qualified for the 2013/14 UEFA Champions League group stage will participate in the new European Under-19 club competition, the 2013/14 UEFA Youth League, which is designed to give young players international competition experience at club level. The group stage will take place between September and December 2013, with fixtures being played around or on the same dates as the UEFA Champions League. The eight group-winners and eight runners-up from the UEFA Youth League group stage will then participate in a knockout phase, played in single matches from February 2014 onwards.

UEFA Events SA is a wholly owned subsidiary of UEFA, created to manage and handle the European football governing body's commercial and event operations. It is, among other things, responsible for generating media rights, sponsorship, licensing and hospitality revenue from all professional national team and club competitions, and for managing relationships with all associated commercial partners.

TEAM Marketing AG is the exclusive marketing agency of UEFA for the exploitation of certain media and commercial rights relating to the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and UEFA Europa League.http://www.uefa.com/uefa/events/marketing/media-rights-and-services/news/newsid=1992261.html
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Going by our academy performances and some of the name sin there, ours is certainly an exciting team. Any idea among other teams in the competition, which other teams will be favourites or the one to watch for? Barcelona/Ajax/Dortmund/Bayern/Milan?
 
Not much to expect from Bayern. Our regular u19 team isn't very strong at the moment and the great talents (Hoijberg, Green) in that age group usually already play for our second team (basically a u23 team with 3 older players allowed) and I doubt we take them out for 3 days trips through europe during the week when their daily schedule is already packed with school, training and competitive games on the weekend.

No idea how the other German clubs handle it, but the whole idea of a UEFA youth league was heavily criticised by almost all clubs. Leverkusen's youth director gave an interview at the end of last season in which he said that they have to bring in more youth players now and already start player rotation on youth level to give them enough time for regeneration, so it might lead to the big clubs taking young talents away from small clubs just to fill up the squad. It sounds like a nice experience for the young players, but it won't help their development, at least that's the general opinion in Germany.

Dortmund and Wolfsburg played in the next gen series, so maybe one of the Dortmund supporters on here can say something about the club's opinion on the youth league. It should be different if the club voluntarily took part in a comparable competition last season. But I think I remember Michael Zorc, Dortmund's director of football, being sceptical in an interview as well.
 
I don't get the point of bringing in more youth players specifically for this competition and taking young talents away from small clubs just to fill up the squad. I mean, they already must be having a decent squad size for the u19 league in the country. Is the criticism coming solely from 'players not recovering from midweek games' point of view?
In my opinion, it is better that players are getting chance to play vs other European teams with different playing styles and learn quickly. As far as recovery of players is concerned, it depends on league structure and cups in each country at youth level and how many matches they play otherwise. If it 30-35 games in total, these 6 games should be more helpful than detrimental. On the other hand, if u19s already end up palying 40+ games a year, then these 6 games can be a burden as they might not be physically ready for so many matches yet.
 
They play 26 league games in Germany, followed by semifinals and a final to determine the German u19 champion, and a few cup games as well. So the teams taking part in the CL have around 30-35 games already. The clubs usually take education very serious - most of the players won't be good enough to make a living in football - and often enough we're talking about already 10-12 hours of hard work each day. The problem isn't that it's just 6 more games, we're talking about at least 3 midweek trips over 2 or 3 days in which they miss training and school. And the squads of course are smaller than the first team squads. And let's not forget, that the really good players are also already away a lot with the youth nationalteams, the German u19 nationalteam played 3 games since August and has 5 more games in October and November. So the top players have another 15 games each season.

I don't mind the idea of a youth league in Europe, but it shouldn't be forced by UEFA. The clubs should be allowed to decide whether they want their youth to take part in or not.
 
The school is a good point. Agree that it shouldn't be forced. Let's say out of 32, 3-4 clubs don't want to participate, UEFA should devise a mechanism for such cases where the highest ranked clubs in UEFA rankings not playing in CL are offered chance to replace them.
 
The Man Himself said:
The school is a good point. Agree that it shouldn't be forced. Let's say out of 32, 3-4 clubs don't want to participate, UEFA should devise a mechanism for such cases where the highest ranked clubs in UEFA rankings not playing in CL are offered chance to replace them.
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They should make a seperate youth CL anyway and not just use youth football as a marketing idea and play the young teams before the regular teams. The two best u19 teams in Germany last season were Wolfsburg and Rostock, they played the final for the u19 title and if German youth teams deserve to play games in Europe, they should be it. Make it its own competition, let the best teams qualify and find a schedule that works for all participants. If a club doesn't want to participate, the next one in line should be offered the place.
 
Balu said:
They should make a seperate youth CL anyway and not just use youth football as a marketing idea and play the young teams before the regular teams. The two best u19 teams in Germany last season were Wolfsburg and Rostock, they played the final for the u19 title and if German youth teams deserve to play games in Europe, they should be it. Make it its own competition, let the best teams qualify and find a schedule that works for all participants. If a club doesn't want to participate, the next one in line should be offered the place.
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Yup I was thinking that as well. In theory it should be that way, but having Rostock, Southampton, Fulham, Villa etc as UEFA youth league teams won't be an exciting prospect for UEFA commercially and hence they might not do it.
 
It will be interesting to see them in their next game. I wouldn't have a clue what the Shakhtar team is like but I think this game will be great for them in terms of the travel, the country, the stadium. It will be something very different to what they are used to.
 
Our next game away against Shaktar will be shown live on mutv at 1 next Wednesday
 
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