So instead of Next Gen they have a Champions league style comp? Why is this bad? * I don't know alot about this level of football so please give me an answer in lehmans terms!
Wow, already. It's still morning, and it's a Friday! Nearly beer o' clock mate, hang in there. haha back on topic though ....what does this mean for our young guys?
"Why is this bad?" Because the organisers were doing it not to establish a kids version of the Champions Greed. If a club could afford to pay the costs of playing, and their academy kids were good enough, they could partipate. So you can have the likes of Aston Villa getting to play Barca. A Fulham supporter not so long asked about the Nextgen because apparently they were thinking of participating (their U18s last season did ok domestically) . And just checking, Sporting Lisbon, who have a very good academy and have been one of the standout clubs over the Nextgen era, will not be able to participate in the UEFA thing (when they would probably slaughter most of the participants) .
"what does this mean for our young guys?" It means they don't get the fun that the Nextgen fixtures provides. The U21 league will be the main proving ground for the kids, and I guess the U18 league behind that.
Cheers mate. So how does a team qualify then? Will they have an u21 league and an under 18's league + u18's CL? Sounds like it's gone from the old European cup, to a CL format in some way.
"So how does a team qualify then?" It seems that if your club gets into the CL group stages, your U19s have the chance to participate in this new tournament. I assume that they are allowing at worst for attrition of 8 less wealthy clubs to guarantee at least 16 participants (four groups of four etc) .
"Not what you're saying" In general, probably fair comment. But not on this occasion. The Nextgen got up to 6 groups of 4 (an extra 8 clubs wanted to participate) . Given that in the CL group stages, you are going to have smaller clubs from far flung reaches of Europe, some of them probably won't be able to afford the logistic costs of 6 games. Which in effect means you're getting the "usual suspects" by default. Which is no doubt just how UEFA want it.
What a load of bollocks. Another ****ing stitch up by UEFA that favours their pet teams. ****s. Villa win the Nextgen and don't even get an invite. This year's English representatives in the UEFA Youth League will be Man Utd, Man City and Chelsea. Spain are represented by Barca, Real and Atletico. Germany by Bayern, Dortmund and Leverkusen. Way to stifle opposition and competition, Sepp and Michel.
I'd be livid if i was Villa, i'm a little livid for Spurs tbh. Football really is a ****ing joke sometimes. It was probably because of Villa, how DARE they?
"i'm a little livid for Spurs tbh." Can understand Spurs and Sporting Lisbon though. The Nextgen results to date show you that both would probably destroy most of the clubs that will be in this Champions greed thing.
Scandalous. Southampton - one of the best academy records in the country but a fairly poor 1st team - no chance of playing in the Youth Champions League. Chelsea - very average academy record but have bought their way to regular Champions League in their senior team - competing in Youth Champions League every season.
"Southampton - one of the best academy records in the country but a fairly poor 1st team - no chance of playing in the Youth Champions League." Indeed. And it actually spoke volumes about certain clubs too. They don't come bigger than Barca, yet they were happy to mix with the likes of Aston Villa. At an U21 game against Man Utd a couple of months ago, I spoke to one of their guys who was a bit ITK, about why they weren't in the Nextgen. And he said that apart from playing such teams in off-season tournaments etc, the club were waiting to see what UEFA were going to do. Go figure.
