Chelsea, Manchester City

“We’ve never won a national trophy and yet we have produced more first-team players than any other academy,” says a proud Jim Cassell, the academy director at Manchester City. “We sacrifice our teams sometimes because the priority is the development of individuals. If after 10 years we had four FA Youth Cups but no players, we wouldn’t have done very well.”

But there is no hiding Cassell’s desire to win that illusive national trophy. What’s more, after ten years building the most productive academy in the country from scratch, he could be forgiven for feeling he deserves it.

It was the summer of 1998 when the Manchester City academy was born. Jim Cassell, a former book-keeper and local government officer, presented a 51-page dossier to the new Chairman David Bernstein only a year after Joe Royle had brought him into the club from Oldham Athletic.

According to Mark Hodkinson, the author of Blue Moon: Down among the dead men at City, it revealed ‘a club run by people without real job specifications, where the hierarchical structure was muddled and essential facilities had to be borrowed, or were missing altogether’. Cassell immediately brought his ‘fastidiously methodical’ approach to the job. “There was no one picking up the bits of paper off the floor, no one taking care of the detail,” he said. 

Since then, Cassell, along with the Recruitment Director, Barry Poynton, has gone about reorganising the entire youth team set-up and in doing so has become one of the success stories of the modern English game. 

Now in its tenth anniversary, the academy has produced an incredible 25 players for the first team, amongst them England Internationals such as Shaun Wright-Phillips, Joey Barton and Micah Richards.

The club now regularly wins the regional Youth League ahead of their neighbours in the North-West, and even manages to run at a profit. “We’ve raised £32.5million, so we’re about £22million in profit over 10 years,” Cassell says. “And that doesn’t include [current senior players] Micah Richards, Michael Johnson, Kasper Schmeichel, Stephen Ireland, Nedum Onuoha, Danny Sturridge and Kelvin Etuhu.”

Cassell isn’t a man who has ever courted the limelight, but he has underpinned the revolution at Manchester City. He has cultivated an academy that has fashioned senior players and youth team titles in abundance. The only criterion of success missing for Cassell is the Youth Cup trophy. 

Tomorrow the second leg of the Youth Cup final pits Manchester City against Chelsea at the City of Manchester Stadium with the tie finely poised at 1-1. Tomorrow night could be his night, and none could argue he would be undeserving. ”We’re desperate to win the Youth Cup,” he says. “But if we don’t we’ll say well done to the opposition and we’ll regroup and get on with the production of players, which is what we’re primarily there for.”
 
The FA Youth Cup has remained illusive to Cassell and his staff since the Academy’s work began and he is as determined as ever to have the name of Manchester City back on the trophy. “I’d love to be part of a FA Youth Cup winning set-up and so too would all of the staff,” he said. 

His team of 2006 reached the final only to lose 3-2 to Liverpool. They were notably bereft of their captain Micah Richards in the first leg, due to his elevation to fist team duties, and it proved crucial when Liverpool scored all three of their goals in front of the Anfield crowd. A gung-ho 2-0 victory at the City of Manchester Stadium in the second leg proved insufficient and Cassell’s wait for the trophy was prolonged.

Cassell’s current Under 18s certainly won’t find it any easier against Chelsea this time though, who can boast the grandest and most expensive youth academy in the world. An overview of the money poured into the Chelsea Academy highlights the contrast between the two clubs and the enormity of the task facing Manchester City tomorrow.

Led by the Head of Youth Recruitment, Frank Arnesen (who Chelsea paid £5million in compensation for) and youth team manager, Paul Clement, the current Chelsea Under 18s cost over £6million in transfer fees and are soon to be housed in a purpose-built £11million building at Chelsea’s luxurious Surrey training centre. They have employed a global network of scouts, more than 50 strong, with two full-time in major European countries and a budget described by one former employee as ‘unlimited’. Indeed Frank Arnesen’s salary alone is higher than the running costs of Manchester City’s entire Academy.

Cassell though will continue to rely on the same attributes that have thrived for a decade. The entire youth set-up at the club is based on an attacking and expansive footballing philosophy fostered within a culture of stability and discipline. Donal McDermott and maverick right winger, Vladimir Weiss, will provide the width tomorrow in a 4-4-2 formation with David Ball and the prodigal Dan Sturridge providing the bullets up front.

The first leg was expected to be a high-tempo, entertaining game and did not disappoint. “It could have been 4-4, it was that kind of game, but any time you come back from Stamford Bridge with a 1-1 draw you have to be satisfied,” said Cassell after the clash which attracted 11,980 supporters to West London. With all still to play for, these two teams will adopt the same approaches for the second leg. 

“We’ll just approach it as a one-off game. A final that we’ve got to win on our own pitch and if we do that, that will be the climax for me” Cassell affirms proudly with the look of a man on the verge of crowning a fine decade’s work with that illusive trophy. 

The second leg is live on Sky Sports tomorrow at 7:30pm (Kick-off 7:45pm)

Tags: FA Youth Cup, Frank Arnesen, Jim Cassell, Joey Barton, Micah Richards, Shaun Wright-Phillips

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