Spoke too soon it seems. UEFA sends 11 teams to FIFA U17 World Cup; 7 group winners and 4 best runners-up. Scotland ended 5th runner-up. Surprised that Sweden didn't qualify either as they looked very talented when they beat England 5-3. That none of the teams from November group ultimately qualified makes the results look even worse. Ireland qualified for the U17 World Cup for a second year running. This time basically achieved by players all produced by League of Ireland club academies. Grieves was the only player from England and even he was on the bench. Seems Murray-Holme is not a 2009 according to Liverpool website. When you refer to Germany also having problems with coaches for their youth teams, guess that includes U17 because they didn't qualify either. Unless 2009 is not a strong year for them, which would put the 7-5 win during September in perspective... Portugal had a shocker as well, losing all three qualifiers. So obviously they won't be defending either their U17 European or World titles. And their 2009 lads will be starting U19 qualifiers next year with England in League B. Wales will also be in League B. Like England U21 last month they managed to draw with Andorra in their opening qualifier. And then they played San Marino yesterday. San Marino 1:0 Wales (Move your mouse to reveal the content) San Marino 1:0 Wales (open) San Marino 1:0 Wales (close) ⏰ FT | 🏴 0-1 🇸🇲Defeat for our MU17s in San Marino.The final match against Georgia in the #U17EURO qualifiers takes place on Thursday. pic.twitter.com/zLf8TRD9Wf— Wales 🏴 (@Cymru) April 13, 2026 Reckon about half the players who started for Wales are actually from England, which is fairly typical these days. And so if there's a fallow year for England, will often have negative consequences for them as well.
🔴 Special Report on JJ GABRIEL ahead of FA Youth Cup semi & PL U18 Cup final 🔺Toughness meets “unique” talent🔺 How #MCFC tried to snare him last summer🔺 Wowing 1st teamers🔺 Nike win race🔺 Still too young to be listed among U18 pen pics ⬇️https://t.co/RQaAqhlJCh— James Ducker (@TelegraphDucker) April 16, 2026 The 15-year-old who is Manchester United’s answer to Max Dowman - Yahoo Sports
🚨🔵 Chelsea have agreed pro deal with 16 year old talented defender Calvin Diakite.Agreement valid until June 2028 with Diakite who’s been part of the Chelsea U21’s, U18’s and England youth team. pic.twitter.com/QDIwD0hBc7— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) April 20, 2026
🚨🔴⚪️ Marli Salmon has signed a pre-agreement for first professional contract with Arsenal.It will come into effect when he turns 17 on August 29th, club confirms. pic.twitter.com/lXRZ63XqCx— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) April 21, 2026
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/38916217/heartbroken-arsenal-hero-emmanuel-eboue-mathis/ a bit on Mathis Eboue's father, who you all know about. not spoken in five years. didn't realise he was eligible for Belgium (through Mum) as well.
I wonder what happened there, I mean as a father I couldn’t imagine in a million years not being around my son and not speaking for 5 years doesn’t even bear thinking about.
Darlington Osochukwu will leave Man United. Have heard multiple times Bilbao could be his destination as he´s a Basque apparently.
According to the FA website, England will finish their season with a couple of games against Mexico later this month.
The FA Youth Cup final is live tonight on TNT Sports 1 - kick off at 7.00pm. Good chance to see JJ (30 G+A in 28 games) and Teddy Lamb (33 G+A in 26 games) starring for United and City in the highest prestige youth final in England. A slight bit of controversy is that City have opted to have the game played in their youth stadium instead of the Etihad and have tickets on restricted sale. United fans believe this is because City know that United can get a lot more fans to the game and make it like an away fixture for City on their own patch. Note that City had tickets for their important title chasing game against Palace on open sale this week.
The #ENGU17 camp in Spain has been cancelled due to a late withdrawl from Mexico. https://t.co/erBMVazmlh— youthhawk (@youthhawk) May 14, 2026
Yeah I actually find it quite poor from us to be honest. It’s a big stage for these kids and the opportunity to play in front of tens of thousands in a final has effectively been taken away from them due to being a bit petty imo. Would have been great for an U18 FA Cup final being played to a capacity crowd at the Eithiad rather than the training ground imo regardless if there might be more Utd fans, players will have to overcome these issues throughout their careers so why not start them early.
Watched pretty much most of the FA Youth Cup final tonight and first time watching JJ live rather than just highlights. I know he’s been compared to Dowman and whilst he seems to have a good skill set, his physicality just isn’t near Dowman imo so might be another few years until we see him playing senior football. Not saying he can’t reach those heights but might take longer for him to catch up physically.
Man City XI: Hudson, Headley, Drake, Braithwaite, Wain, Miles, McAidoo, F. Samba, Lamb, T. Samba, R. Heskey. Substitutes: Vickery, Courtman, Tevenan, Cassim, Gorman, X. Parker, Midwood. Man Utd XI: Byrne-Hughes, Helafu, Armer, Mills, Kukonki, McCormack, Ibragimov, Thwaites, Gabriel, Obi, Ajayi. Substitutes: Overy, Heath, Plunkett, Brown, McEvoy, Lusale, Bradbury. --- too lazy to do the England / England eligible work
🚨 EXCLUSIVE🏟️ The FA is set to consider a rule change which would force the hosts of the FA Youth Cup Final to stage the match at their ‘main’ stadium - or switch it to their opponent’s home - following row between the Manchester clubs over this year’s edition🖊️…— Mike Keegan (@MikeKeegan_DM) May 18, 2026