Next Gen Series

DiCe!

DiCe!

DiCe!

Soldato
Joined
1 Sep 2007
Posts
5,416
What is NextGen?

The NextGen Series is an international football tournament like no other, where twenty-four of the world’s best football clubs showcase their stars of the future in an exciting international knockout competition.

Twenty-four elite academies. Twelve countries. One winner.
The NextGen Series heralds a thrilling new era in competitive football, featuring the next generation of world-class players who have been trained and nurtured by some of the greatest clubs in Europe.

The Tournament gives players and their clubs the chance to take part in a challenging international competition, culminating in a Final to win the coveted NextGen Series Trophy.

It kicked off on August 17th 2011 and includes famous clubs such as Barcelona, Chelsea, Inter, Sporting Lisbon and Liverpool, producers of stars such as Messi, Ronaldo and Gerrard. The opening season saw Inter emerge champions after beating Ajax in a thrilling penalty shoot-out.

The second season starts this August, and for young talents it offers the unique opportunity to experience all aspects of a competitive, large, international tournament. The challenges they will be facing, such as adapting to unfamiliar styles of play, prolonged periods of travel and two match weeks, will help them when making the transition to the first team.

For football fans the tournament is a great chance to watch young players in the making and to experience the new football stars of the future.

The twenty-four clubs are divided into six groups of four, where each club will contest a home and an away fixture against each group member. Many of these fixtures will be taking place in their first team stadiums, such as Celtic Park, Estádio José Alvalade, Anfield and Villa Park.

The top two teams from each group and the four teams finishing 3rd who have amassed the most points will enter the knock-out stages. These will be played over one leg, with each winner progressing to the next round, culminating in the Final. There will also be a 3rd/4th place play-off.

TEAMS


Ajax
Anderlecht
Arsenal
Athletic Club
Borussia Dortmund
Chelsea
CSKA
Juventus
Olympiacos
Paris St. Germain
Aston Villa
Barcelona
Celtic
Fenerbahce
Inter Milan
Liverpool
Manchester City
Marseille
Molde
PSV Eindhoven
Rosenborg
Sporting Clube de Portugal
Tottenham Hotspur
Wolfsburg

GROUPS
Current Standings
http://www.nextgenseries.com/FixturesResultsTables

Group 1

Tottenham Hotspur
Anderlecht
Barcelona
Wolfsburg

Group 2

Manchester City
Juventus
Paris St. Germain
Fenerbahce

Group 3

CSKA
Chelsea
Ajax
Molde

Group 4

Sporting Clube de Portugal
Celtic
PSV Eindhoven
Aston Villa

Group 5

Borussia Dortmund
Inter Milan
Liverpool
Rosenborg

Group 6

Arsenal
Athletic Club
Marseille
Olympiacos
Click to expand...

This is the second year of the next gen series, last year seemed great, it was won by Internazionale with Ajax runners up last year.

Is anyone following this? I think it is a brilliant idea! A Tottenham podcast I listen to are taking a lot of supporters to White Hart Lane on the 13th Sept for Spurs Vs Barca should be brilliant!

Any opinions or other followers of this?

@NextGenSeries on Twitter
 
I follow it - our (Brentford) owner and the Director of Football are the co-founders of NextGen so we get quite a lot of exposure to it. Think the final last year was held at Griffin Park.

Genuinely surprised that more teams don't get involved. Can understand the financial implications for some of the smaller teams, but clubs like Man Utd or those with excellent youth teams (like Southampton) would probably benefit.

Sat next to the Director of Football (Mark Warburton) on the train back from Bury last year, and he was waxing lyrical about the new batch of kids coming out of Barcelona at the moment. Said Samper is due to be one of the best players around!
 
Shamikebab said:
How do you qualify for it exactly?
Click to expand...

I believe clubs were asked to join initially.

It was 16 teams last year and it's expanded to 24.

Manchester United have declined the offer to join both times, the reason not really being clear iirc, but I think a lot of it is down to the amount of games our youth already play as we compete in the Milk Cup, Dallas Cup and a few other international tournaments. I think a few of the teams in the NextGen series withdrew from various other competitions to play it.
 
Last edited:
toshj said:
Genuinely surprised that more teams don't get involved. Can understand the financial implications for some of the smaller teams, but clubs like Man Utd or those with excellent youth teams (like Southampton) would probably benefit.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure we weren't invited last year (admittedly we are rebuilding out youth training facilities again to be the bench mark of cat 1 this season, which we have done, so it wasn't our top priority).

I would expect Southampton to be involved next year once we have completed the restructuring of the academy and seen how the new u21 and u18's leagues work out
 
cm1179 said:
are these televised?

would love to see the spurs group games
Click to expand...

Not sure if any 'UK' broadcaster (Sky, ESPN, ITV, BBC) has picked up the rights. The Liverpool games last year were on LFC tv, I expect more of the same this year.

Was a really good tournement to watch last year, Sporting in particular were great.
 
Last edited:
I thought the Milk Cup was a week-long event, as opposed to running concurrent with the rest of the season.

The twitter account is pretty decent, and keeps you up to date on scores, results and fixtures. Website is good too.

I think it's a great idea. It'll serve well for those players whom break into their respective first teams - as it'll give them exposure to Continental competition - but also to those whi trickle down the football pyramid. I can see it being a viable outlet for clubs to develop the attitudes and mental attributes of their youth players, alongside the physical benefits of playing against teams with completely differing styles.

Also, there's rumours that through our connection with it, Sporting are considering sending their talented 17 year olds to us for 6 months to "toughen them up" although I sincerely doubt this will happen :p
 
We (City) were embarassing last season but a lot of games we played with a mix of age groups because we had a lot out on loan and also we pulled out of the reserve league so it was a shambles really.

This season though with the U21/u18 league and the NextGen it will be just like the first team with the premier league and champions league so i hope we can improve.
 
Spurs vs Barca at the Lane tonight! £5 well worth it! A podcast I listen to is taking some 600 people to sing for 90 minutes, support the shirt not the people that wear it, did one last season with 200 people at Charlton, this should be great!
 
Amazing - I heard earlier this week that around 10,000 tickets had already been sold for it - great response by the Spurs fans!
 
DiCe! said:
Just read that somewhere else, fantastic if true, will get some photos/videos :D
Click to expand...

should be interesting to see who plays from your youth team (we released your keeper from our academy a few years ago! Idiots!:p). Also, keep an eye out for Samper in Barca's midfield - apparently the new Iniesta - and I was told that one of their full backs, can't remember if left or right, is unbelievable too!
 
Alex Prichard - our oldest player at 19 I think, was fantastic!

we hit the bar twice, shot at the keeper far too much.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom