FA Youth Cup Final – Man City v Leeds: BBC Radio Manchester Preview

2008: Kieran Trippier, Ben Mee, Daniel Sturridge.

2020: Cole Palmer, Tommy Doyle, Oscar Bobb.

The FA Youth Cup can showcase the best young talent in the country and give the commentators a chance to shout: “Remember the name…”

Manchester City, who face Leeds in the final on Friday, are looking to win for the fourth time – that or extend their tag as the team to finish second most times.

But those who were there and will be there want the class of 2024 to rise to the occasion.

Ben Mee, who captained the team in 2008, told BBC Radio Manchester: “It was the first time I got an idea of ​​what it was like to be a professional footballer, like in the first team, going to hotels.”

Ben Wilkinson will coach the team at the Etihad Stadium.

“These opportunities don’t come around very often,” he said.

“What we’re trying to do is give our players the best development games and try to put them in an environment that mirrors the first team as much as we can.”

Around 20,000 people are expected at the home of Manchester City.

“It’s a very different feeling to our training ground with a few hundred people there,” Wilkinson added.

“It gives you that hunger of, ‘I want this every week,'” Mee continued.

And if I understand correctly, they enroll in the classes of 1986, 2008 and 2020.

Wilkinson said: “The message is that this is one of your first chances to show the world how good you are, especially in the world we live in now and the pressure on young players, so to see him rise at that time is a problem . really interesting piece.”

Mee agrees: “It’s the experience of being able to play in big games and perform.

“I was the captain of the team and managed to equalize in the final. These are the moments you play football for.

“It gave me that hunger to go on and improve. It also introduced us to the first team a bit. I went on a tour with the first team straight after that and then trained in and around them the following year.

“It brought us to the attention of the manager at the time. A bit of recognition, a bit of coverage, my profile went up a bit more.”

Manchester City’s academy is the strongest it has ever been, according to Wilkinson, who uses various markers. The former are the first-teamers at City – the likes of Phil Foden and Rico Lewis.

The second marker moves on.

“How many players do we have to play in the top five leagues?” asked Wilkinson, noting that these days it’s unlikely that six or seven academy graduates will play together in City’s first team.

“I watched Jeremy Frimpong in the Europa League for Leverkusen. He spent his whole trip here and that’s the best way to gauge how we’re doing.”