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OK so I see the team photo on the website today of our U18/Academy side and I got curious as to who our next group of kids to get up and around the first team might be, and where they came from.

I'd read the match report and saw a few of the names of kids we'd signed recently (namely Zander, Olle and Helan) but wondered what the overall make up of the squad was in terms of nationalities (and what picture that created in terms of our scouting network's strengths/bias)



and so here are my findings below but a couple of interesting bits

We have at least three sets of brothers playing in our junior set up:

Ahmed and Omar Benali
Kim and Tom Skosgrud (the two ridiculously blonde haired lads at either end of the middle row) and
Eirik and Tobias Johansen (both of whom are goalkeepers)

There seems to be a pretty strong Scandinavian representation with several Norweigans and a Swede.

There are a few Irish (mainly RoI but one NorIron) lads but only one Scot. And....amazingly (in terms of the bias in the management team) only one Welsh lad. There are quite a few English lads in there and most are local and a couple are lifelong blues.

We have one Swiss (maybe the next Gelson Fernandes), a couple of Germans and few French players (at least one of whom has been at the national French academy at Clairefontaine).

Interestingly we only have one Spanish player at junior level and no players from other high profile Mediterranean footballing nations (ie. no Portugeezers and no Italians). Nor (from what i can see sourced from the excellent http://mcfcreservesandacademy.co.uk) do we have any further Eastern European players following the trail blazed by Vladimir Weiss and Robbie Mak.

We do have a couple of players from quite bizarre countries like Malta and the Faroe Islands where you have to ask the question "who on earth spotted them" (re Gunnar Nielsen the question is, admittedly, rhetorical as we nicked him from Blackeye Rovers....but the question still stands for their scouting of him!!)

From what I can see, pretty much every one of them has represented his country at junior levels (U16/17/18) and, interestingly, in terms of the points you hear from Hughes/Bowen/Doug re the mentality that the club wants in its players..quite a few of them are the captains of (or have captained) their countries' junior international sides.

Finally (in view of Mr Cassell's redeployment) we don't have any nationals from the Middle East. BUT we do have several players with heritage from that part of the world and/or dual citizenship (step forward Omar El Abdellouai, Ahmed & Omar Benali and Abdisalam Ibrahim).

Goalkeepers (from left to right on the photo above....)
Loris Karius - Germany
Eirik Johansen - Norway
James Wood - Scotland
Nathan Dean - England


Defenders
Tom Smith - England
Nils Zander - Germany
Reece Wabara - England
Kingsley Grandison - England
Shaun Ka Keung Tse - Republic of Ireland
Frederic Veseli - Switzerland
Connor Morrissey - Republic of Ireland
Tom Skosgrud - Norway
Kim Skosgrud - Norway


Midfielders
Omar El Abdellouai - Norway
Andrew Mitchell - Northern Ireland
James Paris - Malta
Tasos Kapsalopdas - Greece(?)
Joan Angel Roman Olle - Spain
Ahmed Benali - England
Emyr Huws - Wales
Eddie Gnahore - France


Strikers
Jack Redshaw - England
John Guidetti - Sweden
Jeremy Helan - France
Bradley Robinson - England
Harry Bunn - England
Emerick Hippias - France

In the 8 bells before the Fulham game last year, a supporter who said he watched all the youth teams at every level said one of the Benali brothers was the best talent he'd ever seen at that age. Does anyone know which one he's talking about?

Chad wrote:In the 8 bells before the Fulham game last year, a supporter who said he watched all the youth teams at every level said one of the Benali brothers was the best talent he'd ever seen at that age. Does anyone know which one he's talking about?

How many pints was he deep?

And....amazingly (in terms of the bias in the management team) only one Welsh lad.

There was at least one more, Craig Frater, but he got released last season.

edge275 wrote:

Chad wrote:In the 8 bells before the Fulham game last year, a supporter who said he watched all the youth teams at every level said one of the Benali brothers was the best talent he'd ever seen at that age. Does anyone know which one he's talking about?

How many pints was he deep?

Come to think of it he was comparing Ched Evans to Alan Shearer so maybe double figures.

Chad wrote:

edge275 wrote:

Chad wrote:In the 8 bells before the Fulham game last year, a supporter who said he watched all the youth teams at every level said one of the Benali brothers was the best talent he'd ever seen at that age. Does anyone know which one he's talking about?

How many pints was he deep?

Come to think of it he was comparing Ched Evans to Alan Shearer so maybe double figures.

Maybe it was Bowen?

Nice one, Ant. A good read.

Thanks Ant. That was very interesting, although I could not understand this bit?

ant london wrote:
Eirik and Tobias Johansen (both of whom are goalkeepers)

ant london wrote:
Goalkeepers (from left to right on the photo above....)
Loris Karius - Germany
Eirik Johansen - Norway
James Wood - Scotland
Nathan Dean - England

What happened to Tobias then?

AlpsMaster wrote:Thanks Ant. That was very interesting, although I could not understand this bit?

What happened to Tobias then?

Ah Tobias is actually older and is with the reserves proper (with people like McGivern, Mee, Trippier and the lads who've been on England duty with the U20 team).

He's still here, think he may actually have a squad number with the main squad

EDIT

Yeah he's got number 57

http://man-city-issues.blogspot.com/200 ... unced.html

Good post... I enjoy reading about the future...

For some reason I thought Helan was a left back. Was wondering why he looked so good smacking balls into the back of the net on video on the OS. Lot of new lads seem to have appeared recently. Alex Nimeley can't be much older than most of those lads in spite of playing for England U20's.

The Norwegian lads seem to have directly opposite hairstyles like the Doubletake Brothers from Harry Enfield's show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukf10sTmWPU

great reading Ant...you'd have better spent this time squiring some muslim christian girl to sunday mass tho i think.

i'm just sayin.

cheers

ant london wrote:Finally (in view of Mr Cassell's redeployment) we don't have any nationals from the Middle East. BUT we do have several players with heritage from that part of the world and/or dual citizenship (step forward Omar El Abdellouai, Ahmed & Omar Benali and Abdisalam Ibrahim).

So Morocco, Lybia and Somalia are now in the middle-east???

Fidel Castro wrote:So Morocco, Lybia and Somalia are now in the middle-east???

No you ignorant rascist pig !@@!!!!!

But for the purpose of every business I've ever had experience of they are firmly within the "middle east" region which always includes arabic speaking supra-saharan africa

Ok smartarse?;-)

Chad wrote:In the 8 bells before the Fulham game last year, a supporter who said he watched all the youth teams at every level said one of the Benali brothers was the best talent he'd ever seen at that age. Does anyone know which one he's talking about?

I saw the under 18s against Crewe yesterday Ahmed Benali was injured he is normally the captain and is a decent player.His brother is a defender who is a few years younger I havent seen him play.He would certainly be too young to get excited about as being a potential first teamer.The under 18s side is in my opinion a pale shadow of last years side beaten by Arsenal.On the positive side I could see plenty of improvement in the team from the first home game played against Crystal Palace a few weeks ago.Given how difficult it is going to be to break into Citys first team now I reckon only one of the lads playing on Saturday has a decent chance of making it.

That's top top read Ant. Like it!

Ted Hughes wrote:For some reason I thought Helan was a left back. Was wondering why he looked so good smacking balls into the back of the net on video on the OS. Lot of new lads seem to have appeared recently. Alex Nimeley can't be much older than most of those lads in spite of playing for England U20's.

The Norwegian lads seem to have directly opposite hairstyles like the Doubletake Brothers from Harry Enfield's show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukf10sTmWPU

Helan can play left back but hes a better player on the left side of midfield.

Our academy must be a pretty difficult place to spend this stage of a player's career since the takeover. It's obviously tough because of the quality of the first team, but most players who "make it" in terms of premiership starting lineups of the future generally come through the academies of smaller clubs, who give them a first team break earlier and allow them to shine. My worry for these lads is they aren't going to get those chances without a considerable stroke of fortune, but at the same time it will be hard for them to get breaks elsewhere as on our books, they're already at a bigger club than anyone who could offer them that opportunity.

Still, this motivates them to work themselves into the ground to get noticed. I just hope a couple of these faces do feature in our senior squad in 2/3 years time.