Sons of

The UYL is a competition that allows you to see for the first time players that you din't realized they exist because they are still in a really young age. Sometimes when you check the line ups you notice familiar surnames. This is because the sons of some ex footballers are following the path of their parents. Here is a list of some of the most outstanding surnames you can find this year:

• Justin Kluivert and Joe Van der Sar (Ajax): As their parents, Justin is forward and Joe is the goalkeeper of Ajax. Patrick Kluivert, his dad, was a really good "killer" playing for teams as F.C.Barcelona and Edwin Van der Sar has been on of the best goalkeepers in Manchester United history. 

• Lorenzo di Livio and Alberto de Rossi (Roma): Lorenzo, the son Angelo di Livio a legend of a great team as Juventus, is a really talented "mediapunta". By his way Alberto is the coach of the team and son of the midfielder and actual captain of the Rome, Daniele de Rossi.

• Luca Zidane (Real Madrid) Is the son of one of the most talented players in the history of football. Zinedine Zidane played for teams as Juventus or Real Madrid and won the World Cup with France. His son Luca is the goalkeeper of the sub-19 Real Madrid team and is international for his country. Zinedine had his other son Luca Zidane playing this competition last yar aswell with Real Madrid.

• Adrià Vilanova (F.C.Barcelona). Adrià is the central defender of F.C.Barcelona and is the son of the ex trainer Tito Vilanova who died not long time ago from a cancer while he was the coach of this spanish team.

• Niklas Tarnat (Bayern) Is the midfielder of this german team and son of the ex player of Manchester City and Bayern, Michael Tarnat who was also international for Germany in punctual ocasions.

Based on the original article: "Hijos de" from MarcadorInt

The competition system (II): Domestic Champions Path

This 3rd edition of the UEFA Youth League brings us a main new from the two past editions; the number of participants is going to increase from 32 to 64 teams.

In that way, this year aren't only going to participate the U19 teams of the clubs involved in the Champions League groups phase, but the Domestic Champions in U19 category from the 32 countries with more UEFA coefficient. In the case that one of that Domestic Champions has its senior team in the Champions League groups phase, its place is released for the champion of the next federation of the UEFA ranking, and so on. In this edition, FC Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk, Olympiacos, Maccabi Tel-Aviv and Dinamo Zagreb have allowed that Kazakhstan, Finland, Bosnia, Georgia and Iceland have a team in the UEFA Youth League.

     Today's UEFA's federations classification


For example, an icelandic team can play UYL via UEFA Champions League Path, if their senior team classifies for the Champions League groups phase or via Domestic Champions Path, as they are good enough positioned in the UEFA's federations classification.

Applied to spanish football, Villarreal is playing the UYL as the champion of Copa de Campeones in the Domestic Champions Path while FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético, Valencia and Sevilla are playing the UYL in the UEFA Champions League Path.


The Domestic Champions Path includes 32 U19 national champions. These teams will play up to two knockout rounds already drawn in a home-and-away format and 8 teams will come out from this.

This 8 teams will play (as the away team) against the 8 2nd classified teams from the UEFA Champions League Path groups in a playoff with the objective of being in the Top 16 knockout. The champions of the UEFA Champions League Path groups will be the home teams in this round.

The next rounds of the competition where already explained in the post "The competition system (I): UEFA Champions League Path"

     On the next days are going to be played the first matches of the second round of the Domestic Champions Path. The 8 winners from this knockout will pass to the next knockout to enter to the Top 16 knockout.


You can follow the results and the details of the matches of the UYL Domestic Champions Path here: http://www.uefa.com/uefayouthleague/season=2016/matches/results/index.html



Source: Una UEFA Youth League mucho más amplia | MarcadorInt

Official Sponsors

UEFA YOUTH LEAGUE Official Sponsors

Uefa Youth League is sponsored by seven different companies of the most prestigious in the world.

At first sight they may seem exactly the same sponsors that the Uefa Champions League but we can see some differences.

These sponsors are:

 

The main differences with the senior competition are:

1. Seven different sponsors, one less than UCL that has eight
2. Heineken and Gazprom are sponsors of UCL but not of UYL
3. Adidas is a sponsor at the same level than the other brands in contrast with what happens in UCL

So do you think that UYL rights for sponsorships should be sold independly from UCL or do you think that could be included and then raise the price of being the sponsors?

The competition system (I): UEFA Champions League Path

The 3rd edition of the UEFA Youth League has brought us many news about the competition and its system. This news have a clear objective; continue the huge football expansion through europe powered by Platini since he is president of the top european football organ.

We are going to show and present the news and developments of this new UYL season in a future post, but first we will present the format that has been running since the beginning of the competition, 2 years ago.


The first stage is very simple, there are 8 groups (A-H) with 4 teams in each group. The distribution of the teams is exactly the same as it is in the Champions League. Basically, in this phase the youth squads of the Champions League teams compete in a same-structure competition. Each team has to play twice (home/away) against every team in its group.

    Comparison of groups A and B between Champions League (left) and Youth League (right) at the ending of the 3 game.

After the first stage, the 2nd classified of every group, will play against one of the teams classified via Domestic Champions Path in a single-leg knock-out. This match will be played in the field of the teams arrived from the Domestic Champions Path.

The teams that pass this round will play against the teams that classified 1st in the groups of the UEFA Champions League path. The eight group winners of the UEFA Champions League Path group stage and the eight winners of the play-offs contest the round of 16, for which the pairings are determined by means of a draw. This draw also determines which will be the home teams. This round will be also played in a single-leg knockout match.

The quarter finals will have the same structure as the previous round. The matches will be determined by draw as the home team will, and the round is played in a single-leg knock-out match.

The semifinal and the final will be played in a "Final 4" format, played as two semifinals and a final both played in the Colovray Stadium in Nyon, Switzerland. There is not going to be a match for the 3rd and 4th place.


You can follow the results and the details of the matches of the UYL Champions League Route here: http://www.uefa.com/uefayouthleague/season=2016/standings/index.html

Welcome

Welcome to our new blog for the university subject of Sport Business 15/16. The main topic of our blog, as the name indicates, is the UEFA Youth League. We will try to approximate the less known of the UEFA’s competitions to all of you, because we think that they will continue growing and increasing their impact in the next years as they have done since its creation in 2013.

Originally titled as UEFA Under-19 is a competition for all under age players registered to the 32 senior clubs that qualify for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League, but this year the number of teams that participate in this Youth League has increased to 64, including 32 domestic youth champions, in an innovative and entertaining new competition system that we will explain in the following posts of the blog.

Apart from the competition system, the (brief) history, the impact in the academies of the different clubs and the business and economic part of this competition, we will also talk about similar competitions related with young players and the importance of this kind of tournaments in all of the mentioned aspects.

You can follow the competition here:  www.uefa.com/uefayouthleague/index.html