Youth Cup S24

48 teams entered this season.

There were a few more who wanted to join, but either applied late or I excluded them because of their previous record of forfeiting games.

I spend a lot of my free time organising the Youth Cup every season in addition to running the game world, and I’m not wasting my time with people who have shown they can’t be bothered to set their teams.

It’s also understandably one of the biggest bugbears for other managers who do. There’s not much worse than setting your team only to be demolished by someone else’s first team.

As one manager put it last season:

… puts out first team again David Marsden , very annoying in an elite gw that people can’t be bothered despite logging in daily

Disappointingly, five times winners and last season’s beaten finalists Levante won’t be reaching their eight consecutive final as they have decided not to enter this time.

Thanks to those who have entered.

Team	Ave. rating
Genoa	86
Leicester City 	85
Barcelona 	84
Espanyol 	84
Juventus 	84
Dortmund	83
MAn City	83
Cruzeiro	82
Hertha Jugend	82
Inter Primavera	82
Leverkusen	82
Aston Villa 	81
Atletico Madrid 	81
Chelsea	81
Montpellier F.C.	81
Real Madrid 	81
Sampdoria	81
Bayern Munich 	80
Benfica	80
Club Brugge	80
CR Flamengo	80
CSKA	80
Milan	80
Fenerbahce 	79
Feyenoord U21	79
Marseille	79
Udinese	79
Arsenal 	78
Dynamo Kyiv young stars	78
Dynamo Moskva 	78
Hamburger SV II	78
Manchester United	78
São Paulo 	78
Sevilla	78
Besiktas 	77
Olympiacos 	77
Stoke City	77
Athletic Club 	76
Dinamo Zagreb	76
Santos FC	76
Schalke	76
Hoffenheim	75
Lyon	75
Tottenham	75
Valencia	74
St Ettiene 	73
Everton	72
Villarreal 	72

Groups and fixture schedules can be found on the Challonge website as usual. This is ONLY for the group games.

There are eight groups of six teams each.

Each team will play each other once, so five group games each.

We’ll have a xmas and new year break this season, so the first three group games are 7, 14 and 21 December, then the final two games are 4 and 11 January 2025.

Top four in each group qualify for the Knockout Stage beginning 25 January (one leg). Subsequent rounds of 16, QF, SF and Final will all be over two legs. I’ll make a new Challonge site for the Knockout Stage when the groups are finished.

Losers in the first knockout round drop into the Youth Shield along with the fifth and sixth placed teams in the Group Stage. The Shield begins on 1 February, one leg for rounds of 32 and 16, then two legs for QF, SF and Final.

Finals for both Youth Cup and Shield will be 15 and 22 March.

We have a WhatsApp group for the Youth Cup and a FB Messenger group, where I send out reminders of fixtures and results with updated tables.