Battling the Smurfs for Youth League progression

Battling the Smurfs for Youth League progression1-1 draw to take into Tuesday's second leg It may only be the beginning of November, but some crucial weeks lie just ahead! A few days ago, goalscorer Dovas Grudzinskas and his teammates secured a 1-1 draw away to their counterparts from KRC Genk in the second round of the UEFA Youth League’s Champions Path. The return leg is on Tuesday at 14:00 CET at the Red Bull Football Academy. All tickets have already been snapped up. For those who missed out or are unable to attend, we will be broadcasting the decisive match via a free RBS TV stream. Football from tomorrow on the European StageLast Wednesday’s encounter between De Smurfen and Danny Galm's squad was a tightly contested affair - a reminder of past duels. In fact, KRC Genk’s very first UEFA Youth League appearance came against our Young Bulls. During the 2019/20 group stage, the two sides also played out a 1-1 draw -back then at the Untersberg-Arena in Grödig - before our team went on to win the return leg 2-0. Care to recall a few names from the starting lineup back then? Karim Adeyemi, David Affengruber, Amar Dedic, Bryan Okoh, Alex Prass, Benji Sesko, Nici Seiwald and Luka Sucic - less than seven years later, all of them are playing in top-five European leagues.The advantage in terms of freshness likely lies with our boys: while our cooperation partners, FC Liefering, were in action on Friday in the second tier, Jong Genk - the Belgian side’s reserve team, which features several Youth League players - only played on Saturday afternoon, away against FCV Dender EH, a team relegated from the top flight that has been performing near-perfectly.For the sake of clarity: if the score is level after regular time, there will be no extra time. Instead, the match will be decided directly by a penalty shootout.The winner of this tie will face the winners of the clash between Red Star and NK Bravo on November 25 or December 9. The Serbian side won the first leg 1–0 away from home. This marks the third and final round of the UEFA Youth League’s Champions Path, before that path merges with the clubs coming from the league phase.Important travel infoAs there is no parking available at the academy site, we kindly ask all fans to travel by public transport or cycle whenever possible.Those arriving by car should park at the Red Bull Arena stadium car park and use our free shuttle service to the academy.Shuttle bus departures from stadium car park:13:1513:40After the final whistle, the shuttle buses will take all visitors back to the stadium car park.ViewsOver the weekend, we made full use of our deep squad and gave the boys some playing time. This shows me that they are ready - and are fully engaged. First and foremost, it was important for us to secure a positive result in Saturday’s match so that we could shift our focus to the return leg. The situation is clear: there is one game left - the winner advances to the next round, while the loser is out. We want to show a completely different side of ourselves when it comes to intensity, as that is an area where we really need to make up some ground. We’re looking forward to a knockout match and a great battle. We’re confident that we’ll be able to bring the intensity we need onto the pitch. We are well-prepared.Danny Galm