While Newcastle United’s senior team are away on international duty or back in training on Tyneside, the Under 15s are lifting trophies.
There’s no first team action for Newcastle United until 12th April when they take on Crystal Palace, while the Women drew with Sunderland just yesterday. But before that game got underway, the Under 15s were enjoying a stellar weekend in the capital.
The youngsters took part in the Premier League U15 International Tournament at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground, which also included the likes of Juventus, PSG and Borussia Dortmund.
It was an all-English final, however, as the young Magpies faced off against Manchester City. Given how prolific the Man City academy is at churning out stars, this is a huge win.
15-year-old England youth international Muawiya Ghanem scored the winner in the final and went on to lift the player of the tournament award less than a year after NUFCBlog broke the exclusive of his signing back in August.
On their way to lifting the trophy, the Young Magpies beat Manchester United 2-0 and Crystal Palace 4-0 in the group stages before knocking out hosts Chelsea in the semi-final, winning via a penalty shootout after a 0-0 draw.
It’s a superb achievement from our lads, not just to beat Man City and Man Utd along the way, but to concede just one goal in our five games on our route to victory.
Highly-rated Charlie Robinson scored a hat-trick in our 4-0 win over Palace, recent recruit Josh Kenchington was involved, while giant goalkeeper Lucas Flack also impressed a year on from his arrival from Leyton Orient.
It must be seen as a huge confidence boost and a big lift to the academy to see our young stars winning tournaments, especially when the Under 21s’ form varies almost as wildly as the first team’s has this season.
Academy director Steve Harper was overjoyed and heaped praise on the youngsters in an interview with the official website.
“What an incredible achievement from all of the players and staff involved.
“To emerge as deserved winners in a competition featuring many of the elite youth academies of not only the Premier League but Europe too, reflects a huge amount of effort from every department at the Academy.
“The boys gave absolutely everything in every minute of every game. An enormously proud day for everyone connected to the Academy and football club.”