Chelsea’s FA Youth Cup dominance translating into first-team potential
By George Perry
Chelsea FC won their fifth straight FA Youth Cup title yesterday with a 7-1 aggregate win over Arsenal. The next few years will reveal the legacy and impact of this record.
Morris’ Marvels took their place alongside the Busby Babes in youth football history on Monday. Jody Morris’ Chelsea U18’s continued their dominance of the FA Youth Cup tournament, winning their seventh title in nine years and matching Manchester United’s legendary youth sides’ record of five straight.
Chelsea’s loan army distracts attention from the important role these youth tournaments have for the players and the club. The loan system is cast – often rightly so – as a black hole of young potential. The Blues have top youth players and teams, as the trophy case at Cobham demonstrates, but then this talent dissipates in random European leagues and down the English pyramid. But after a few years of this perception having a defensible basis in Chelsea’s youth development, the pattern is reversing and the FA Youth Cup is a look-ahead at the next batch of household names.
For the first of the five FA Youth Cup titles in 2014, Chelsea defeated Norwich City. Andreas Christensen, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Dominic Solanke were among the starting XI. Charly Musonda replaced Solanke in the 72′, while Kyle Scott watched from the bench.
The starting XI from the following season’s tournament are now almost all regular first-team starters in top-tier or Championship clubs. Tammy Abraham, Solanke, Musonda, Ola Aina, Fikayo Tomori, Jake Clarke-Salter, Isaiah Brown, Jeremie Boga and Jay DaSilva were all on the pitch. The following year Mason Mount and Trevoh Chalobah won their first FA Youth Cup.
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This season’s title winners include two players who have already made their first-team debut: Callum Hudson-Odoi and Dujon Sterling. Hudson-Odoi scored a brace in the second leg of the final to earn the tournament’s Golden Boot.
The youth trophies also serve another important purpose at a club like Chelsea: they give players a love of winning, which matures into a desire to do it at the top levels. By going deep in these tournaments, the players learn how to handle the pressures of these games and the tactical adjustments that go into playing a final. They learn how to win, and they learn to love it. They carry this with them, so if they come back to Chelsea they do so wanting more trophies.
The winning mentality starts at the youth level. Much like how Jose Mourinho embraces the EFL Cup to give his players a taste for the bigger trophies at the end of the season, the FA Youth Cup and other tournaments give these players a taste of what awaits them at Stamford Bridge.
Not every Chelsea youth player will be Andreas Christensen, but the Dane will remain the model and the ambition for these young men. Simply by the numbers, players like Christensen will remain the exception and not the norm.
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But the Blues’ academy is becoming a fertile ground for first-team players, even if that first team is somewhere else, and even if it requires a few years on loan before they find a permanent home. And as time goes on, stories like Andreas Christensen’s may be a bit less rare, and a lot less unusual.