Academy column: A trip to Singapore
In this week’s Academy column we speak to head of Academy football operations Nick Marshall, who gives us an insight into taking a group of U15 and U16 players to a tournament in Singapore.
I have just returned from taking our 2000-2001 born squad to represent Liverpool in Singapore for the Lion City Cup and I have to say it was a fantastic experience for our youngsters. We've got good links with a company called Redcard over there, who organise different events in Singapore, Indonesia and all over Asia, and we were invited to come across. The Lion City Cup had a one-year hiatus last year but they brought it back this year with ourselves, Tottenham and two national teams from Singapore with their U15 and U16 squads.
I only took two members of staff with me in Joe Lewis, our physio, and Brad Wall the analyst, and they were brilliant in helping me make sure the kids had an invaluable experience out there. We try to provide this all-round experience across the course of the season that will benefit our youngsters to not just being good footballers but good people as well. For example, while we there six of the lads helped me deliver a coaching session to some underprivileged kids and all the lads were tasked with finding out some information of Singapore and presenting it to the rest of the group.
We beat the Singapore U16 national team in the semi-final. We were 3-0 up at half-time but they came back and we managed to beat them in the end on penalties. We had a very young group of players over there with the majority of our boys born in 2001, so it was always going to be a tough ask to play 80 minutes of football in extreme heat and humidity against boys born in 1999. The boys did very well and we lost in the final to a very good Tottenham team but again they were a significantly older group than us. Half of our group can go back and play in the tournament next year so the experience they had was invaluable. You can’t buy that exposure to playing against different teams in different conditions.
Last weekend our U19 players went to Holland under Neil Critchley to play in the Otten Cup and they gave a fantastic account of themselves. Last year they lost in the final to Red Bull Brasil and they beat that team this year and pushed Barcelona all the way in the semi-final despite being younger than them, so that offers really good signs for the future.
My role as head of Academy football operations is to look after the football part of the operations and that includes helping run the coach education programme, games and tournament programme, coaching and also helping out the recruitment team whenever I can. Playing tournament football all around the world is massive for our young players. In Singapore I had to do a little presentation and I spoke about how important these tournaments are as one week away can be as valuable as a whole month of coaching and games at home. It’s a massive part of what we do and because we are Liverpool we get invited to a lot of similar competitions.
In September our 1999 group are off to the Czech Republic for a tournament, the 2000 group will play a game in Benfica, our 2003 group are off to play in a tournament in Holland and our 2005s are off to Vienna. The reason we must play tournament football is quite simple. You look at the average kid in a top Spanish club or a top German club and they have so much more tournament experience than we have. Their players have had all the challenges of playing against different opposition in a different environment. We want to be a Champions League club again so we have to produce players who will be capable of playing in those kinds of games, so they have to experience tournament football and be a part of it.
This is my second season at the Academy and it’s a role I am thoroughly enjoying. It’s a wonderful club to work for and the quality of the people here shines through every day. It really is a privilege to be in their company.