Manchester City youngsters expected to have big impact on U21 European Championship final

As many as five players from Premier League club could be involved when England face Spain on Saturday

England goalkeeper James Trafford, right, and Cole Palmer, centre, England celebrate after winning their Uefa Under-21 Championship semi-final against Israel in Batumi, Georgia. EPA

Talk of a treble can seem routine to several of the precocious footballers preparing for Saturday's European Under-21 Championship final in Georgia. A startlingly high number of them were, after all, in close proximity to a historic treble with their club employers only last month.

Encouragingly for Manchester City, new holders of the European Cup, serial winners of the Premier League and custodians of the FA Cup, the summer is beginning with abundant evidence their next generation of stars are as gifted and eager as their seniors. As many as five City footballers could be involved when England’s U21s take on Spain in Batumi for the title of Europe’s best up-and-coming national side.

Four from City could, at some stage in the game, form the spine of an England team seeking their first Uefa title in this age-group for almost 40 years. Spain’s City starlet, Sergio Gomez, meanwhile, is one of six Spaniards seeking to extend their own remarkable dynasty. In 2017 Gomez was among the winners of the European Under-17 title. Two years later Spain followed up with the Under-19 version. Add the Under-21 crown and that’s a very special, junior treble.

It’s also the sort of continuity coaches working with teenagers barely dare dream of, a smooth trajectory in which potential identified in a schoolboy player develops, as hoped, through all the physical and psychological changes of late adolescence. And it survives the perils and traps of a nascent professional career, where many prodigious talents choose the wrong club, or the wrong coach and find their opportunities for advancement stalling.

The sizeable City connection among the finalists speaks of the club’s fine scouting and careful nurturing of talent. Not only are City the principal suppliers of England’s ambitious young tyros - like goalkeeper James Trafford, who has yet to conceded a goal in his five matches so far at these junior Euros; captain Taylor Harwood-Bellis, who, out on loan at Burnley, celebrated promotion to the Premier League last season; and midfielders Tommy Doyle and Cole Palmer - but they have been the key club for a broader generation of achievers at youth international level.

Rewind to the 2017 Euros, when Spain’s Under-17s were embarking on the first of what is now a long saga of tussles for silverware with their English contemporaries. Gomez, then in Barcelona’s youth system - he signed for City last summer - struck one of the penalties that gave the Spanish the gold medals. Phil Foden, the star of City’s academy and now a senior England international, had scored for England during the see-saw 2-2 draw during the previous 90 minutes.

England’s leading scorer for that tournament was Jadon Sancho, then of City’s academy but soon to join Borussia Dortmund, impatient for playing time in a senior side.

Five months later, in the 2017 Under-17 World Cup, the finalists would again be England and Spain. But the outcome there was reversed. Gomez scored twice, as did Foden, in England’s 5-2 victory. Ferran Torres, later of City, was on the opposite wing, Spain’s right, in that Spanish side.

Foden, now 23, would still be eligible for England’s under-21s - the qualifying cut-off for the current tournament is having a birthdate after January 1, 2000 - but he has made such stunning progress, with 25 senior England caps already and five Premier League titles since he debuted for City’s first team, that Foden has long outgrown age-group football.

Likewise, there are Spanish players who could, in theory, be involved with their Under-21s still, like Torres and his current Barcelona colleagues, Pedri, 20, and Gavi, 18. But they have moved upwards.

That is the ambition of all those involved in the final, and in some cases, it will mean making tough decisions about where they play their domestic football.

Trafford will return home after close to finalising a transfer to Burnley, his motivation a faster path to regular first-team football than he can foresee at City, where the hierarchy of glovemen has Ederson at the top of a roster including Stefan Ortega and USA international Zack Steffen. “I am sure he will have a big future ahead of him,” said Lee Carsley, the England Under-21 coach, of his goalkeeper.

On Trafford’s immediate horizon are a free-scoring Spain, 5-1 winners over Ukraine in Wednesday’s semi-final and capable of conjuring goals from a variety of angles and distances. Gomez, who made most of his 23 appearances for City last season at left-back, has scored three times from midfield during Spain’s progress to the final. Striker Abel Ruiz, his fellow Under-17 and Under-19 champion, is on the same tally.

The shared history of youth success is the key to Spain’s confidence, says head coach Santi Denia, who was in charge of the successful Under-17s and Under-19 sides: “The players stay faithful to an idea of how we should play.”

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