UNITED UEFA youth challenge a taste of the big time
UNITED could have enjoyed more success in their early forays into Europe under Sir Alex Ferguson if the Old Trafford youngsters had played in a UEFA Youth League when they came through the ranks, according to Nicky Butt.
The Class of ‘92 graduate is now in charge of the Reds’ U19s and they booked a place in the Youth League knockout rounds with a 6-2 thrashing of Young Boys at Leigh Sports Village on Tuesday.
Butt believes the Youth League has a real benefit in getting United’s youngsters used to European competition and is something that would have benefited him and the club’s other academy stars before their initial exertions on to the continent.
After winning the title in 1992/93, United initially struggled in Europe before getting to grips with it in the late 1990s.
“We faced European teams in tournaments in pre-season but doing it on a more regular basis would have helped,” Butt said.
“It took us six years to get used to European football, a lot of rollickings from Sir Alex, because we weren’t used to it, we weren’t used to people diving, to touching people and they go down and win a penalty.
“For us as a club it’s a massive benefit, because I don’t know how you get used to that without this competition.
“When we were growing up we didn’t have this competition, you just played your local teams and your national teams.
“Then you go into European football and make your debuts and it hits you that it’s completely different and you have no experience of it.” Butt believes the way European games are officiated is one of the biggest learning curves and he highlights an incident against Juventus at Old Trafford that cost him as an example. “I remember the first time I experienced it and I just touched (Alessandro) Del Piero slightly, he went down and got a penalty for Juve at Old Trafford,” he said. “You don’t want to learn like that, you need to learn here, make your mistakes here, realise you can’t do that, you don’t want to do it at Old Trafford in an important Champions League game.” Aidan Barlow scored from the penalty spot against Young Boys and the 18-year-old said he’s learnt a lot Nicky Butt from Youth League fixtures against the Swiss side, Juventus and Valencia.
“You don’t know much about the side because obviously they’re a foreign side and they have players from all over, so they have different type of players,” the Salford-born midfielder explained.
“I think it’s great. Obviously you get big crowds, like away at Valencia is a good atmosphere, and it’s definitely a very good experience.”
The foreign opponents have also posed United’s youngsters a few fresh problems as well with Barlow and his team-mates often forced to figure out their own solution on the pitch.
“Against Young Boys we were going up against quite a difficult formation,” he said.
“You have to try and deal with it during the game and I think the first half we struggled a bit with that, but in the second half we got together and we managed to overcome it.”
United will finish their Youth League group stage campaign against Valencia in Spain in two weeks time before resuming after Christmas in the knockout stage.
While Butt is a big fan of the competition, he admits it’s not perfect. With the Young Boys fixture kickingoff at 1pm there were only a few hundred people at Leigh Sports Village.
The former United midfielder would like to see UEFA help fund transport and accommodation for lower clubs, allowing them to stay an extra night, with fixtures taking place in the evening.
“They have to sit down and make it better, because the environment is great, the pitches are usually good, the teams you play against are really good but then there’s nobody in the crowd so how can you get them used to that?,” he said.