Analysis

Aznou amazes, Baidoo excites, and famous sons make their mark

UEFA Youth League, Matchday 1 – SCOUTED's comprehensive coverage begins

Llew Davies, Stephen Ganavas

20 Sep 2024 — 19 min read

What a glorious time of the year this is. The weather is getting crisper, the leaves are turning colour, the nights are drawing in, and the UEFA Youth League is back. It makes it feel like football is in full swing again.

Why should you care? Because this competition is where you’ll get the first glimpse of football’s future. If you want to get the early beat on the next big things coming through at Europe’s biggest clubs, you need to watch this.

If you can’t watch it, you need to keep track of it — and the best way to do that is by sticking with SCOUTED. This is the first of numerous in-depth round-ups of Europe’s premier youth tournament. You won’t find anything like this anywhere else, we promise.

Secondly, because it’s exciting and unpredictable — the last two winners, AZ Alkmaar and Olympiacos, are testament to that. Youth football is notoriously difficult to predict; the games ebb and flow from end to end; it produces tremendous individual goals and horrible collective mistakes. These games are genuinely good fun to watch.

It should be noted that this year’s competition resembles the new format of its parent UEFA Champions League — to some extent. The games will mirror the men up until MD6, where the young ones will stop. It’s all sorted into one giant league table too, just like the seniors.

And also… with the addition of Jake Enwistle to our full time team, our UEFA Youth League coverage will be even more comprehensive than ever.

Here’s Jake, Llew Davies and Stevie Ganavas on all the key narratives and standout performers from MD1. It’s a monster, so sit down and take your time.

In this UEFA Youth League: MD1 round-up…