Marveld misery for United

Despite a promising start that saw them in contention to qualify for the final of this year’s Marveld Tournament with one group game remaining, United’s U15s were forced to settle for a repeat of last year’s 10th place finish as their competition ended with disappointing defeats to Lokomotiv Moscow and PSV Eindhoven.

Euro U17s: Johnstone gets his chance but Young Lions make early exit

England’s U17 side have crashed out of the 2009 UEFA European U17 Championships, missing out on a place at this year’s FIFA U17 World Cup in the process, after a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Turkey in their final group game.

Tunnicliffe’s England suffer Euro setback

England’s Under-17s, featuring United midfielder Ryan Tunnicliffe, crashed to a 4-0 defeat at the hands of host side Germany this afternoon, leaving their hopes of qualifying from the group stage of the 2009 UEFA European U17 Championship hanging by a thread.

Thorpe and Keane help England to Montaigu glory

United schoolboys Tom Thorpe and Will Keane were both key members of the England U16 side as the Three Lions successfully defended their Montaigu Tournament title this Easter weekend.

U16 duo called up for England’s Victory Shield defence

England U16 boss Kenny Swain has called up Tom Thorpe and Ravel Morrison to his squad for next month’s 2008 Sky Sports Victory Shield.

MUPC Days 3 & 4: Reds finish a creditable sixth

Tournament favourites Fluminense proved too strong for the United U15s in the quarter-finals, but the young Reds rallied to earn sixth place and praise from many.

MUPC Day Two: U15’s through to the last eight

United matched their day one performance with a win and a draw on day two to secure qualification for the quarter-finals of the Manchester United Premier Cup World Finals as runner-up in Group A.

MUPC Day One: Young Reds off to a promising start

United’s U15’s kicked off their 2008 MUPC World Finals campaign at Carrington in encouraging fashion this morning, following up a comprehensive 3-0 victory over Indonesian side Villa Academy 2000 with a creditable 1-1 draw with Paris Saint Germain, a team with a great track record when it comes to producing young talent. The Reds currently sit atop Group A, ahead of Chilean outfit Audax Italiano on goal difference, but there’s a long way to go yet.

United’s final two group games will take place tomorrow at Carrington, with Audax Italiano up first at 10.30am and then the intriguing match-up with Real Madrid at 4.30pm.

Manchester United Premier Cup World Finals 2008 kick off tomorrow

The 2008 MUPC World Finals kick off at Carrington tomorrow, with 20 U15 teams from across the globe descending on Manchester for one of the most prestigious youth football tournaments in the world.

Tis a fine week to be a young Manchester United ‘keeper…

The past seven days have been kind to United’s emerging custodians. Edwin van der Sar’s post-Euro 2008 vacation, Tom Heaton’s loan to Cardiff and Ron-Robert Zieler’s participation in the Euro U19 Finals with Germany has had something of a knock-on effect, elevating younger keepers up the pecking order into games they would otherwise have stood no chance of being involved in.

The most obvious beneficiary has been Ben Amos. With everyone present and correct the 18 year-old would have been competing with two others for game-time in the reserves’ friendlies, but events conspired to give him a first team ‘debut’ (albeit non-competitive) last weekend at Aberdeen. To say he seized the opportunity with both hands or put in a blinding performance would be an exaggeration as in all honesty he had very little to do, but what he did have to do he did with utmost competence, and the England U18 stopper didn’t look at all out of place.

Even better news was then to come in midweek, when Thursday saw Ben named in the 21-man travelling party for the Reds’ pre-season tour of South Africa and Nigeria. Ben goes on tour as clear third-choice keeper behind Ben Foster and Tomasz Kuszczak and, with those two competing for the understudy job this season (and potentially their United futures) he may well struggle to get much time on the field of play, but regardless, the experience of going on tour with the first-team, training with them every day and participating in the community projects the squad take part in on these jaunts can only be an incredibly good thing for the youngster’s development.

Similar story for Gary Woods (well, bar the South Africa part). The seventeen year-old got seventeen priceless first-team minutes under his belt in Scotland last Saturday as substitute when a more typical set of circumstances would have probably seen him not playing in a match until the Under 18’s take on Bury in August. What’s more, Amos’ first-team call-up makes Woods first in line for reserve glove duty, and he should start in nets for at least the next two games (against Altrincham and Oxford).

And the knock-on effect extends even further. Conor Devlin’s apprenticeship only began at the start of the month and he is yet to even play for the Under 18’s, but last Saturday saw him between the sticks for the reserves at Burscough. The 16 year old from Northern Ireland is expected to deputise for Woods in the forthcoming reserve games. Devlin’s deputy at Burscough got a massive and unexpected opportunity also – Sam Johnstone will spend most of this season keeping goal for the Under 16’s, so twenty minutes of senior football for the reserves will have been a great experience for the 15 year-old.

As mentioned above, one of the reasons for the above quartet rising up the pecking order is Ron-Robert Zieler being otherwise engaged at the UEFA U19 European Championships in the Czech Republic. And he’s doing rather well too – Germany made it two wins from two in the group stage with a 3-0 victory over Bulgaria yesterday (Dennis Diekmeier, Savio Nsereko and Lars Bender with the goals) in a game that RRZ could probably have kept a clean sheet in whilst asleep. Qualification for the semi-finals is now assured for the Germans and, with the holders and big favourites Spain surprisingly already eliminated, a real opportunity to win this tournament for the first time ever is looming large.