Celtic FC Academy conducts a spectacular football festival

On Sunday (October 1), the Celtic FC Boys’ Academy conducted a successful football festival at Barrowfield.

The tournament featured a six-a-side competition for U12s from Scottish and English academies.

Celtic, Dundee United, Motherwell, Hamilton Accies, and Manchester City were among the teams competing.

Each club had two participating teams that were separated into two groups, and after each team played each other in 18-minute matches, one final placing match would take place, with the team finishing in the same position in Group A facing the team finishing in the same location in Group B.

It was another wonderful afternoon, with the youngsters facing new obstacles while still having a great time playing football.

Each young individual and squad has a lot to offer.

and could take away from Barrowfield’s fantastic experience

Willie McNab, Head of Children’s Programmes, commented on the success and relevance of festivals like Sunday: “We spoke as a working group for Club Academy Scotland, and we have been looking at ways to create better experiences for players.”

“How we did that was to look at three weeks in the calendar and have a bit of leeway in saying here are the events that you can go try.”

“So today we had some slightly different formats, six-a-side games with no throw-ins.” So we had dribble-ins or kick-ins to keep the game going quickly.

“We also played shorter 18-minute games against different opponents.” Manchester City, Dundee United, Motherwell, and Hamilton are all on the rise.

“You play different games against each other. As a result, it forces our children to step outside of their comfort zones, which should hasten their development.

“That is the type of idea to try to organize events like this for the kids.” It will benefit their overall development.”

“It’s a great challenge,” McNab says. “We played against Manchester City, and they play very differently than Motherwell or Dundee United.”

“Today, the kids experienced losing a game, winning a game, being behind, or not having as much of the ball.”

“We can try to prepare with that.”

If they do get to play in the UEFA Youth League or even in the Champions League at Celtic Park, you will have given them all of these distinct experiences.

“We want to try to develop technically better players, so having more kids playing, like today, even though it was smaller sided games, gave the kids a lot of game time.”

“That can only help in the development of young players.”

“The most important thing is that they enjoy it as well.” They’ve got a variety of experiences, while previously they would come down and play a standard game that was perhaps a little stale.

“So it’s just about trying to reinvigorate that a wee bit.”