Oscar career path just the Bobb as City chief Txiki keeps a close eye
“WE played PSG two seasons ago and Oscar Bobb was against Xavi Simons. Now look where he is now. You see these young players and think ‘who’s he?’ Then two years later you go ‘oh!’”
It is no exaggeration to say that some of the City youngsters who walked out against Mainz in the UEFA Youth League could progress to play in the Champions League for some of Europe’s top clubs in the future.
As Bobb and Simons showed when they went toe-to-toe in the competition in 2021, the competition is a stage for youngsters to show their talents on the biggest stage.
And they know that Europe’s top Sporting Directors will be watching closely, including City’s own Txiki Begiristain – who uses the competition to fully assess the best talents in the academy.
In that clash with PSG, which under-21 head coach Brian BarryMurphy remembers, there were not just Champions League goalscorers and senior internationals Bobb and Simons on the teamsheet. There was England international Rico Lewis and Belgium’s Romeo Lavia in the City squad as well as France’s Warren Zaire-Emery for PSG. Seven others in the squad have made their senior debuts for City in the following two years.
Last season, the likes of Carlos Borges impressed for City in Europe, and he is a regular for Ajax in the Europa League and Conference League this term. In short, performing well in the Youth League can significantly enhance your career prospects and earn a bigmoney move (or perhaps a bigmoney contract at the Etihad).
“Txiki says it’s the singular most beneficial tool to measure our elite talent against the best in Europe,” Barry-Murphy tells M.E.N Sport. “It’s the competition he watches above everyone else. For example, to see how Oscar Bobb compares against the [Hajduk] Split guys in the last-16 [last season].”
Begiristain keeps a close eye on the academy, calling new academy director Thomas Krucken every day to discuss the club’s young players.
He sanctioned the sales of a number of City’s best academy talents over the summer, such as Borges for £17m. but insisted that Pep Guardiola
take a chance on Bobb during the pre-season tour. Bobb hasn’t looked back, scoring important goals for the first team, and is set for a new contract that Guardiola says is fully deserved – now challenging him to kick-on after securing his extension and big pay rise.
“Last year we had a little bit of an all-star line-up,” Barry-Murphy reflects. “All our players were in the second year of the EDS and really experienced. We had Bobb, Borges, Dire Mebude, Shea Charles, Finley Burns, Kian Breckin. They were all confident we could go into the deep stages.
“This season the players didn’t know anything about it, they had very little experience of it, and they were very nervous in the group stages. That’s fine, but we’ve surprised ourselves a bit about how well we’ve done in the group stages.”
Barry-Murphy admits that some players were surprised by the impact of the home fans last season in an environment that is rarely
Begiristain keeps a close eye on the Academy, calling the director every day Simon Bajkowski
seen in youth games.
“There’s a few players that were in that team, I was on the bench,” midfielder Jacob Wright tells M.E.N Sport.
“Playing in it you can see how the fans affect it. We’re a lot stronger for it. We had it in the Youth Cup at the Emirates last season in front of 12-13,000. There’s experience among the lads for playing in front of fans and how the fans can affect it, I think we’re in a stronger position going into it to manage that better.”
Begiristain will be watching with interest.