'We're proud of our special atmosphere'

Following Mike Marsh's appointment as first-team coach in August 2012, Cooper took up the role of U18s boss.

In his first Liverpoolfc.com column, he talks about the Reds' recent FA Youth Cup victory and how a special atmosphere has been forged at the club's Kirkby Academy.

On Wednesday we beat Histon 4-0 in the FA Youth Cup. Kristoffer Peterson, Jerome Sinclair, Jack Dunn and Daniel Trickett-Smith were all on the scoresheet and we're through to the next round.

This game was a different kind of test because of the opposition and the pitch we were playing on. But it was one that we knew was going to be a positive test in terms of our boys' development.

In general, these lads are used to playing on nice pitches and in nice conditions against a certain style of football, so it was good to make a change to that.

When you play in this type of game, you have to make sure that you overcome the emotion of the Histon boys, who will be so motivated to beat Liverpool.

It's not that I had any doubts, because we all trust each other here, but we were mindful of how we approached the game.

We were constantly reminding the players, through video analysis, the tactics board, a lot of individual and unit meetings, to make sure that they were up to speed with what is expected.

On the night we were organised, we knew our positions and I was pleased.

The preparation wasn't exactly what you would call normal either because we took the team to Qatar the week before.

Now that was a superb experience - one day we were playing Inter Milan, the next we were playing Real Madrid.

What a wonderful learning curve for the lads, playing at top-drawer facilities, in the nice weather and with all the media exposure that went with it - not to mention the level of opposition.

We can reflect on this trip and every single one of the boys will come back from the trip a better player. That's for sure.

While we were there we visited a children's hospital - sort of like Qatar's equivalent of Alder Hey in Liverpool.

I have two children myself, so to go to somewhere like that and offer a little bit of support and show a little bit of emotion was very important to me personally.

In situations like this, you look to see how our young players respond because, I'll be honest, we saw some unfortunate scenes while we were there. And it really did remind us all of just how lucky we are.

My thinking was - if we can put a smile on somebody's face just for one day, then that's really important. But I was very pleased with the way the boys embraced the day and how they interacted with the patients there.

They showed bags of maturity and kept level-headed throughout - it can't have been easy for them.

We look to see how players handle all different types of situations. After the win against Histon, we now face Leeds at Anfield in the cup, so it will be good to see how they respond to that.

But every player is different - you see that on a day-to-day basis at the Academy.

Some players like to be in and around the staff and others are not so close but that's fine. What we try to work hard at as staff is to figure out each individual and give each of them the appropriate relationship.

It is important that we have strong relationships with the boys. Firstly because we spend so much time with them to try and influence and inspire them.

And secondly, because they are at a really important age, so they need help and support, not just through football development but in terms of growing up.

Ages 16-18 are crucial times in anyone's life - they also happen to be extremely demanding times in terms of becoming a footballer - trying to force your way into teams, progress to the first-team or gain a contract extension.

You need to be there for these boys emotionally. Here we work really hard on, not disciplining the players as such, but just making them good people.

At the moment, there's a really, really nice atmosphere here - the players are really comfortable around the Academy. That's something that hasn't happened by chance- we've worked really hard with this.

We start our work with the schoolboy teams so that when they progress, they carry the values with them.

We pride ourselves on the relationship that we have with the players because we do, genuinely, think the world of them. And we want to give them the best that we can.

This way, if you are trying to teach them or you are demanding something from the players, then they might feel a little bit more obliged to listen to what has been said and carry out the instructions.

Whether it is a game plan or a job to do on the pitch - if there's that trust there, then we'll work hard for each other.