11.30am 24 March 2012
NextGen Series, Third Place Play Off
Liverpool U19 2 Olympique de Marseille U19 0 (att 40)
My second visit to Chelsea's plush Cobham training ground, returning to see a game on the new main pitch, which is enclosed with floodlights and a trio of stands, and, crucially for my groundhopping "rules", is not the same pitch that I'd previously seen Chelsea's youth team play on.
The Cobham complex has been transformed since my last visit in 2008, but I was surprised when I arrived to find the teams I planned to watch, Chelsea and Charlton's under 18 sides, warming up on an outside pitch. A friendly steward told me I had a choice of matches, and so I chose the NextGen play off between beaten semi finalists Liverpool and Marseille, a fixture I had no idea even existed.
The NextGen series is supposed to provide the next generation of players an introduction to Champions League style football. Quite how a Saturday morning game, in front of a few dozen people at Chelsea's training ground, is a useful preparation is anyone's guess.
While a far larger crowd lined the touchline of "pitch 8" to watch Chelsea's youngsters, the few of us watching this weren't exactly rewarded with much of a spectacle. Liverpool dominated, and deserved their win thanks to an opening goal in the first half and second deep into stoppage time at the end of the second.
Marseille rarely threatened, and Liverpool should have won more convincingly, having wasted the game's few other clear chances.
The contrast between this, and Liverpool's semi final defeat to Ajax in front of 6,000 fans at St Helens, which I also attended, could hardly have been any starker.
NextGen Series, Third Place Play Off
Liverpool U19 2 Olympique de Marseille U19 0 (att 40)
My second visit to Chelsea's plush Cobham training ground, returning to see a game on the new main pitch, which is enclosed with floodlights and a trio of stands, and, crucially for my groundhopping "rules", is not the same pitch that I'd previously seen Chelsea's youth team play on.
The Cobham complex has been transformed since my last visit in 2008, but I was surprised when I arrived to find the teams I planned to watch, Chelsea and Charlton's under 18 sides, warming up on an outside pitch. A friendly steward told me I had a choice of matches, and so I chose the NextGen play off between beaten semi finalists Liverpool and Marseille, a fixture I had no idea even existed.
The NextGen series is supposed to provide the next generation of players an introduction to Champions League style football. Quite how a Saturday morning game, in front of a few dozen people at Chelsea's training ground, is a useful preparation is anyone's guess.
While a far larger crowd lined the touchline of "pitch 8" to watch Chelsea's youngsters, the few of us watching this weren't exactly rewarded with much of a spectacle. Liverpool dominated, and deserved their win thanks to an opening goal in the first half and second deep into stoppage time at the end of the second.
Marseille rarely threatened, and Liverpool should have won more convincingly, having wasted the game's few other clear chances.
The contrast between this, and Liverpool's semi final defeat to Ajax in front of 6,000 fans at St Helens, which I also attended, could hardly have been any starker.
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