City Under-19s Lead Coach Ben Wilkinson says our UEFA Youth League trip to AZ Alkmaar will be a difficult but exciting test with the winner likely to be decided by the fine margins.
City’s young boys in blue travel to the Netherlands for our latest European assignment with kick-off scheduled for 17:00pm (UK) on Wednesday 2 April.
The narrative of the prestigious competition’s knockout stage consisted of difficult road trips with our youngsters tested to their limits in a penalty shootout win over FC Midtjylland and hard-fought 2-1 triumph at Hoffenheim.
And Wilkinson expects our match against AZ Alkmaar to be no different, with the Dutch Under-19 league champions looking to win the competition for a second time in three years.
“I think each game is different so we’ll have a slight different plan in terms of what the opposition brings but ultimately I just expect something similar to the last two games in terms of a tight game that’s decided on small margins,” began Wilkinson.
“I don’t think it’s going to look like a typical Academy game where we dominate the ball and we have 75-80% of the ball.
“That’s unrealistic in terms of translating that into the senior game. I’d expect a really close game in terms of the scoreline and also what the game actually looks like.
“We just need to try and be good enough to come out on top in the key moments and the smaller details.
“I think, you know, they’ve [AZ Alkmaar] got a real good pedigree in the tournament over the last few years and a good heritage in the Academy in terms of producing first-team players.
“They’ve beaten Manchester United, Benfica and Real Madrid in really tight games, very similar to ours that you know obviously to get through them it tells you that they have some quality.
“They won the league in Holland last year so like Hoffenheim and FC Midtjylland it’s another team who we obviously need to show respect to but we also need to have the belief that if we go and play the way that we want to play and show courage and stand up to them, so we have a chance of winning.”
Watch Wilkinson’s preview in full via the video above…