Youth Academies

eZe^

Who do you think recently has had the best youth academy in recent years?

Was it Ajax with their continual churning out of player after player? Ajax are regular producers. Maduro, Sneijder, Van Der Vaart, Heitinga who all moved/ aremoving to bigger clubs. Boca Juniors also seem to produce player after player, most of which become key members of he national team.


Man City have a good shout in recent years, Micah Richards, Steven Ireland, Michael Johnson, Nedim Onouha and now Danie Sturridge are all looking like good prospects, not to mention Ishmael Miller who banged a few in for West Brom. Im sure Xavi6 will point me out on some mistake here, or at least give us a better insight into that academy.

Man Utd who had a golden era a couple of years ago...

West Ham, who seem to have an amazingly academy when it comes to producing top English talent.

There is obviously the likes of arsenal who consistently have a young squad that is fueled by some youth players and alot of youngsters Arsene snaps up. I also hear that Rafa Benitez has been working really hard with Liverpool's youth academy so that they will have a consistent number of very talented youngsters over the next few years (fu*king Pacheco). =P

You have Gremio who graduated Ronaldinho, Anderson and Lucas.

It depends on what you qualify as the best? The best in that its the most productive at producing players that play at a professional level (albeit not necessarily for the club thats produced them), or a youth academy that makes less quantites but of a higher quality. I remember seeing that Madrid have brought up something like 50 players (the most of any team in Europe) that are currently playing football all around Europe, whether thats the Valero for Mallorca or Miguel Torres for Madrid. Most of their youth is not deemed good enough for the highest level in La liga, but they produce loads of players that play at a professional level. More than any other institution in Europe. Then theres Barcelona's youth system, which has produced about 25 current professionals. It is 2nd (or maybe 3rd) in the quantity of professionals it produces, but I personally think there is more quality produced here. The likes of Pique, Reina, Garcia, Xavi, Messi, Iniesta, Valdes, Puyol, Bojan, Giovanni, Oleguer, De La Pena, Arteta, Gabri, Merida, Pacheco, Jeffren, Pedro, Busquets, Vasquez and Fabregas. Its all dependent on how you rate the best academies.

Since I really don't know enough about the youth set-ups outside Barca and Madrid, I'll comment on these. If you were to make a team of current professionals who have all grown up in the Barca youth squad, imo you'd have a very talented team;

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Valdes

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----Puyol

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Pique

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Oleguer

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F.Navarro

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Fabregas

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Xavi

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Iniesta

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Messi

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dos Santos

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Bojan

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Reina
Gabri
Arteta
Luis Garcia

The problem with the Barcelona academy is we don't produce a lot of diversity. We do produce the occasional defender and what not, but overwhelmingly we produce similar types of players...Xavi, Cesc, Iniesta, Arteta, de la Pena, Gabri... the only attacking midfielder with similar quality that Madrid has recently produced is de la Red, but they produce more diverse players.

For Madrid you obviously have Casillas, Guti, Miguel Torres, Saldado, De La Red, Balboa and De La Red.


So ya, could people who know about their teams youth systems post a little info on them? It'd be nice to see how different teams operate.

Pure Cork

I couldn't pick a best tbh.

I think Crystal Palace deserve a mention. They've produced quality players like Seán Scannell, Victor Moses, Lee Hills, and John Bostock. There's apparently plenty more coming through the ranks, some who might break into their first-team this season.

Jordan has put millions into developing a successful youth academy at Crystal Palace.

Unfortunately, Bostock's move to Spurs for a miniscule £700k was the last straw for Jordan, who has become disillushioned with modern football, and he now intends to sell the club.

I hope Scannell stays with Crystal Palace for the foreseeable future and develops there while getting first-team football.

Pure Cork

Cork City youth teams have produced some good players;
Name -- Current Club - Highest international recognition
Joe Gamble -- Cork City - Ireland International (2 caps)
Damien Delaney -- Q.P.R. - Ireland International (2 caps)
Shane Long -- Reading - Ireland International (8 caps, 3 goals)
Alan Bennett -- Reading (on loan at Brentford) - Ireland International (3 caps)
Colin T O'Brien -- Cork City (on loan at Cobh)
Leon McSweeney -- Stockport County
Brian Barry-Murphy -- Bury
Neal Horgan -- Cork City
Denis Behan -- Cork City - Ireland U-23 International
Cillian Lordan -- Cork City
David Meyler -- Sunderland - Ireland U-19 International
(Not to mention most of Cobh Ramblers team.....but that's nothing to boast about at the moment )

Not sure if I left anyone out...

I haven't included players who came back from England at a young age, or young players we signed (like Kevin Doyle from Pats, Darren Murphy from Cobh, Liam Kearney from Nottingham Forest who made 7 Ireland U-21 caps scoring one goal while with Cork City, etc.), they don't count.

Hopefully we'll continue to produce more quality players from our youth teams, and also sign and develop young players.

Adamcp898

Not sure if any of the big English clubs deserve that big of a mention here tbh. All they do is buy any good talent when they're 16/17 from lower divison English clubs or from the continent, they're not the player's first club and they don't develop them at a younger age.

FourFourTwo did a feature like this not so long ago and from I remember England lagged behind continental Europe a lot namely Holland, Spain and Portugal.

PHB

Do we mean youth academies who bring up local players or youth academics ala West Ham who produce top players ala Arsenal

Galvasean

Arsenal seem to be a bit of both. They snap up a lot of their youth players from abroad. Fabregas, Ramsey (Wales is abroad right?), Vela, Clichy etc.
But theres also a good few home growns who came from the Arsenal youth academy who are doing the top flight rounds; Ashley Cole, David Bentley, Jermaine Pennant, Jamie O' Hara, Steve Sidwell etc.
edit: Keep an eye out for Jack Wilshire in the near future.

Pure Cork

PHB wrote: »

Do we mean youth academies who bring up local players or youth academics ala West Ham who produce top players ala Arsenal

Both, I presume.

I think West Ham have a fantastic youth academy, better than Arsenal in my opinion. If only they had managed to keep the best players they've produced, they'd have an unbelievable team.



@Galvasean, I wouldn't include Ramsey as an Arsenal youth player (product of their youth academy) because they didn't develop the lad. They signed him from a club where he was already contracted as a professional.

Galvasean

Pure Cork wrote: »

@Galvasean, I wouldn't include Ramsey as an Arsenal youth player (product of their youth academy) because they didn't develop the lad. They signed him from a club where he was already contracted as a professional.

Yes. I should have said 'young', not 'youth'.

leninbenjamin

England's a strange set up. the smaller clubs are really vulnerable, what happens is they end up doing a lot of work for the bigger clubs. they'll spot a player, trial and train him for a period and then, if it turns out he's any good, one of the bigger clubs will be along to offer the professional contract. happens all the time apparently.

Pepe LeFrits

Arsenal's domestic academy is somewhat underrated because no youth products play in the Arsenal first team. However if you look for English players in the top flight that Arsenal have produced there are quite a few - Ashley Cole, David Bentley, Steve Sidwell, James Harper, Stuart Taylor, Jamie O'Hara, Justin Hoyte and Fabrice Muamba. Wilshere will be included in this list very soon! I wouldn't include Pennant in the same group as he was signed from Notts County. Still, a lot of premiership clubs wouldn't be producing that many (there only about 170 English players in the PL iirc and a lot of those would be nurtured at lower league clubs).

Wenger completely revamped the academy when he arrived a decade ago and the first batches of players who have only have ever played under his system (ie joined the club at 9 or 10 after he'd arrived) are starting to come through now, so it'll be interesting to see how they do. The likes of Randall, Gibbs and Lansbury look like the prototype for the new Arsenal youth product - technically good, versatile and comfortable on the ball.

PHB

United's domestic youth program has taken a serious hit in the past. The golden generation was produced to scouting across the entire country and taking the best young kids to train at United. United then took the approach that it was not cost-effective to produce young talent as much anymore, so they went the foreign route. The first generation of that has just come through in Zeiler, Pique, Rossi, and the next generation is looking even better, Fabio, Rafael, Possebean, Petrucci all look talented players.

At the same time, United don't do too badly producing talented players just from Manchester, although none of them have really been able to break through at United. Campbell, McShane, Jones, Richardson, Eagles all play at a premiership/championship standard. At this stage, the youth academy is basically the most profitable wing of United and most of these kids weren't even given a chance. We do however have real talent coming through in the form of Welbeck.

United even still have totally revolutionised their coaching techniques in the last couple of years. Up to the age of 15, everything is based on 4v4 games in order to emphasise touch. Fergie thinks the current generation have all been ruined by outdated techniques, and United are constantly fighting with the FA about the rules they put in place. The 90 minute rule has been shocking to be honest. It's no surprise that London based clubs with youth academies like West Ham and Arsenal are doing good, because their 90 minute area is huge population wise. Liverpool and United unsurprisingly have suffered because of it. Neither of them have produced a top quality young player in their squad in the last 4-5 years. This is directly as a result of the 90 minute rule. Because not only does it hurt the kids outside the area who are forced to train in substandard facilities, it hurts the players in the area, because they are playing worse kids.

Galvasean

PHB wrote: »

Welbeck

Football Manager tells me he will score a hat trick against Inter in 2012 Champions league final.

*places a bet*

Xavi6

Since our new academy opened properly in 1998, 26 players have played first team football for Manchester City, and all bar one (Leon Mike) are still active in professional football -

Shaun Wright-Phillips
Terry Dunfield
Chris Shuker
Dickson Etuhu
Leon Mike
Chris Killen
Tyrone Mears
Joey Barton
Stephen Jordan
Willo Flood
Glenn Whelan
Stephen Elliott
Bradley Wright-Phillips
Nedum Onouha
Jonathan D'Laryea
Lee Croft
Stephen Ireland
Micah Richards
Ishmael Miller
Michael Johnson
Daniel Sturridge
Kasper Schmeichel
Shaleum Logan
Kelvin Etuhu
Ched Evans
Sam Williamson

bohsman

Hopefully we can start talking about the Bohs academy in a few years, new deal with DCU - the academy gets full use of all facilities, no competetive games till 13s, 600 turned up for trials, scholarship system for 3rd level.

Dolph Starbeam

In South America i wouldn't rate them high at all, i remember that when Ronaldo was starting he had trial with Palmeiras which was the opposite side of the town to him, he couldn't afford the bus, palmeiras wouldn't pay so he went on trial with Cruzeiro instead and was sold a year later for a few million to PSV.

In Holland the teach kids to train on there own from 10 upwards so they can perfect there technique, then from i think 12 upward they do be doing all sorts of tumbles and sumersaults to make themselves more agile and to improve there balance. The training system is absolute perfection, probably also the reason a lot of the Dutch players seem to be kind of co*ky.