Following the FA Youth Cup victory last April, Manchester City’s world-renowned academy has been invited to one of the top youth competitions in the world, the Dallas Tournament in Texas.
City will follow their U19 Super Group bracket A opener against AC Milan with difficult games against Canada’s Toronto and Mexico’s Tigres. The City starlets will play a total five games and if they reach the final, they can expect to play in front of a bumper crowd of 20,000.
Manchester City academy manager Jim Cassell said: ‘It’s an honour for us to be invited to such a prestigious tournament. The age group is Under-19 but we’ll take a younger squad to give them experience. It will help to educate the younger ones about playing against foreign opposition.’
The City contingent will return home eight days before their FA Youth Cup semi-final second leg at Arsenal, where they hope to overturn a 2-1 deficit.
Last year England was represented by Leicester and Liverpool, the latter managing to win, beating Tigres 3-0 in the final. Liverpool are joined by Nottingham Forest and West Ham United as former winners.
The Dallas Cup Super Group has also featured some of world football’s top stars in the early stages of their careers. The likes of Freddy Adu, David Beckham, Michael Carrick, Landon Donovan, Rafael Marquez, Michael Owen, Raul, and Wayne Rooney are all past participants.
Squad to travel: Abdi Ibrahim, James Poole, Jeremy Helan, Andrew Mitchell, John Guidetti, Joe Clegg, Tobias Johansen, Reece Wabara, Andrew Tutte, Robbie Mak, Alex Nimely-Tchineni, Greg Cunningham, Chris Chantler, Ahmad Benali, Jack Redshaw, Sean Tse, Dedryk Boyata, Omar Elabdellaoui.
Groups:
Bracket A
AC Milan (Italy)
Tigres (Mexico)
Manchester City FC (England)
Toronto FC Academy (Canada)
Bracket B
Sao Paulo FC (Brazil)
Urawa Red Diamonds (Japan)
Eintracht Frankfurt (Germany)
Dallas Texans Red (N-TX)
Bracket C
Club Atletico River Plate (Argentina)
Vancouver Whitecaps (Canada)
Club Futbol Monterrey (Mexico)
Andromeda U18 Academy
More information on the tournament is available at http://www.dallascup.com/