Youth Competitions

[YNWA14]

Woof.

Netherlands were knocked down a peg pretty well by the reigning Asian champs Japan. 3 - 0 and the Netherlands looked completely toothless. Very poor showing from one of the pre-tournament favourites. The Dutch had no answer at all for Wakatsuki.

France on the other hand comfortably dispatched Chile. Aouchiche in particular had a standout display.

Don't know too much about either the US or Senegal teams but looks like a pretty one sided affair with Senegal winning 4-1.

 

[YNWA14]

Angola get a goal at the death. Heartbreaking for Canada but they played well for this one.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

@Ajacied, @YNWA14, Netherlands U16 are playing in a tournament in the USA starting on Thursday and all the games will be streamed on some combination of the US Soccer twitter, Facebook and YouTube platforms.

The other three participants are USA U17, Turkey U16 and USA U16. I don’t know what year the Netherlands players will be from this year. It would normally be the 2004’s, but this year’s tournament is a different than most years with the format. The USA is sending the U17 back ups that didn’t make the U17 WC, which is the 2002’s. The US U16’s at this tournament are the 2003’s. I don’t know what year the Turkey U16’s are.

Netherlands plays US U16 Thursday at 3:30 PM Eastern Time, Turkey U16 on Saturday at 3:30 PM Eastern Time and then US U17 on Monday at 6:30 PM Eastern Time.

 

[YNWA14]

Barcelona and Chelsea both out of the UEFA Youth League in the group stages for the first time after today’s results.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

Barcelona and Chelsea both out of the UEFA Youth League in the group stages for the first time after today’s results.

Senior team to follow.

 

[gary69]

Curtis Jones run the show for Liverpool in the Napoli trashing, and their rightback Neco Williams had a good game attackingwise as well.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Senior team to follow.

Good joke. You’ll finish first place. Could Barcelona give up three goals in the first half at home to Paderborn?

 

[YNWA14]

Obviously as the youngest goal scorer ever in the competition Youssoufa Moukoko now becomes the youngest ever player to record a hat trick in the YCL. I doubt that record is broken for a very, very long time. He JUST turned 15 years old and his numbers are just insane: 56 games, 90 goals and 16 assists at the u17 level, 20 games, 24 goals and 7 assists at the u19 level and he won't be 16 until NEXT November. He's also not some physically dominant player either which makes it all the more impressive, IMO.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Obviously as the youngest goal scorer ever in the competition Youssoufa Moukoko now becomes the youngest ever player to record a hat trick in the YCL. I doubt that record is broken for a very, very long time. He JUST turned 15 years old and his numbers are just insane: 56 games, 90 goals and 16 assists at the u17 level, 20 games, 24 goals and 7 assists at the u19 level and he won't be 16 until NEXT November. He's also not some physically dominant player either which makes it all the more impressive, IMO.

I hope he’s in the squad when 2021 starts. Haaland and Alcacer as the strikers to start next season, Moukoko when he turns 16 joins them.

 

[gary69]

In the youth CL, Lyon's Florent Da Silva missed three straight spot kicks (twice retaken).

All were similar poor attempts, hard to believe they don't have a better taker than that. He since scored from open play, but Salzburg are still on their way through, leading 4-3 with about 10 mins to go.

 

[Evilo]

And Da Silva is quite the player to boot.
No idea what's going on.

 

[Ajacied]

Despite the big guns attending training camp, Ajax through to the semi’s of the youth league. Rasmussen, Hansen and Ideho all scored sweet goals from long distance. I especially like Ideho’s one:



Ajax will fight for the title with Benfica, RB Salzburg and Inter/Real.

 

[gary69]

Benfica vs Real Madrid it is in the final.

I remember playing in FM some editions ago against Benfica and this speedy kid tormented me on the wing. I then went out to find more about Umaro Embalo, who is on this finalist Benfica team. By the way, he was born a compatriot to Ansu Fati in Guinea-Bissau (year older than Fati).

Real has traditional big CF who can lead the line and finish in Juan Latasa.

But Real has a long history of forwards since Raul Gonzalez (who is the manager of this team) excelling in the youth teams, but not amounting to anything special at senior level. We'll see if Latasa can do any better than them.

 

[gary69]

Real narrowly win the final 3-2, Benfica missed a penalty and other good chances. Their striker Goncalo Ramos scored a pair and ended as tournament's top scorer.

 

[HajdukSplit]

UEFA's U21 qualifying is coming to a close in the next month (interestingly I saw England drew 3:3 with Andorra at U21 level ) and only realized today UEFA changed the format for the upcoming 2021 U21 Euros. There will be no playoffs and the competition will be spread over the March and May international windows. Tournament was expanded to 16 teams meaning the nine group winners + 5 best runners-up join co-hosts Hungary/Slovenia in he tournament. The group stage will be played in March, they will squeeze three games in a span of a week for each team. The knockout phase will be played in late May/early June finishing about a week before Euro 2021

 

[HajdukSplit]

15 of the 16 finalists for the upcoming U21 Euros are known, unfortunately the last spot will be decided administratively as Iceland's match in Armenia was cancelled (Armenia aren't allowed to host matches due to the conflict over there + several of their players tested positive for the virus so they weren't able to travel to Cyprus). It is very likely Iceland get awarded the three points meaning they would qualify ahead of Poland

Hosts: Hungary, Slovenia
Group Winners: Italy, France, England, Czech Republic, Russia, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany
Best Runners-up: Portugal, Switzerland, Croatia, Romania, Poland/Iceland

Due to the pandemic the tournament will be separated into two parts, the group stage will take place in March while the knockout phase in late May-early June

 

[cgf]

Will be very curious to see how our U21s do, as this will be our last youth team to be held back by those awful pre-2000 age groups.

We're far from favorites, but there are some interesting kids who could/should be on that team alongside Wirtz and Mai; with the likes of Schlotterbeck, Maier, Geiger, Nmecha, Krüger, Burkardt, Massimo, Jakobs, Mbom, Baku & Czyborra having featured for the side already. Our attackers on that team aren't as advanced as the top teams or our talent elsewhere...though Nmecha has been scoring well for them...but if those young attackers do come through, that team should be fun given the talent in midfield and defense.

Hoping for something like

Nmecha/Krüger
Jakobs - Wirtz - Burkardt
Maier - Geiger
Mbom - L.L. Mai - Schlotterbeck - Baku

or

Nmecha* - Krüger*
Wirtz*
Mbom** - Maier
Geiger
Jakobs - L.L. Mai - Schlotterbeck - Baku

*Burkardt
**Wirtz / Keitel / Ozcan​

 

[Evilo]

France's U21 pool is absolutely sick. Like arguably the best U21 team ever. Remains to be seen how they're coached and how they play together.

 

[HajdukSplit]

UEFA released the pots for the draw (December 10) and interestingly the two hosts are not seeded, however Hungary will be placed in Group A and Slovenia in Group B

POT 1: Spain, Germany, France, England
POT 2: Italy, Denmark, Portugal, Netherlands
POT 3: Romania, Croatia, Czech Republic, Russia
POT 4: Switzerland, Iceland, Hungary, Slovenia

 

[HajdukSplit]

2021 Euro U21 draw

A: Hungary, Germany, Romania, Netherlands
B: Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy
C: Russia, Iceland, France, Denmark
D: Portugal, Croatia, England, Switzerland

It's hard to judge youth football with different generations (for example Romania qualified for the Olympics in the last edition) but based off reputation, Group D is the toughest while the others are more straight forward

Also the group stage will go head-to-head with World Cup qualifying in UEFA, so some teams might not have their best available squad

 

[cgf]

Not expecting too much since our stronger post-turn-of-the-millennium age groups aren't yet with the U21s (Wirtz being the big exception)...hell our U20s might actually be the stronger team right now.

Assuming younger kids like Moukoko / Adeyemi / Samardzic / etc. aren't promoted to the U21s by the tourney, a prospective roster would look something like:

Nmecha
Jacobs - Wirtz - Burkhardt
Maier - Geiger
Mbom - Mai - Pieper - Baku

Bench:
Berisha, Krüger, Maina / Dorsch, Fein / Czyborra, Schlotterbeck, Beyer​

Won't be enough to compete at the very top, but could be fun if they're on form & Wirtz isn't otherwise predisposed.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

I think Krueger has a better chance to be playing first division next season than the team that needed strikers, but didn't give him a contract. Pretty funny.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Damn all the youth competitions are cancelled.

For those that didn’t see, FIFA cancelled the U17 and U20 WC’s for 2021. This is bad for 2001-2005 born players who play outside of Europe currently. Getting scouted will be tougher.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

For those that didn’t see, FIFA cancelled the U17 and U20 WC’s for 2021. This is bad for 2001-2005 born players who play outside of Europe currently. Getting scouted will be tougher.

it hurts the fans more than anything

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Olympic Qualifying out of CONCACAF starts today. These are U24 squads. The groups are not very balanced. Mexico, USA, and Costa Rica are all in Group A. Group B has Canada and Honduras. Only two teams will advance to the Olympics. Top two in each group go through to one-off games to qualify for the Olympics. The third best team at the tournament will probably not even make that one-off game. I also think Canada and potentially Honduras have outside chances to qualify.

Canada's squad at full strength could easily qualify, but they aren't close to full strength. In the other group, Costa Rica is the closest of the big three in that group to full strength. Mexico is missing about five players, while the USA is missing more than that. Mexico and USA are the two favorites to qualify, but qualifying out of CONCACAF when only two spots are available could yield many different results. A sub-plot is that Mexico is playing at home at altitude with fans in the stadium. That could play a part.