It’s that time of year again. Academy teams are bound for Dallas to compete in two of the highest profile youth tournaments in North America. This year five Academy sides will be spread across the Dallas-Fort Worth area competing against some top competition from around the globe.
Generation adidas Cup
Earlier this year two TFC Academy sides qualified for the 2019 Generation adidas Cup finals. The GA Cup is MLS’ premier Youth tournament. The U-17 (2002) and U-15 (2004) TFC Academy sides both put together strong qualifying campaigns to earn their spots in the tournament.
The U-17 team qualified for the Championship division of the tournament. The Championship division features the top qualifying MLS sides along with top international competition. The U-17s have been drawn into Group B.
The team will face the LA Galaxy, CA Penarol (Uruguay) and Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia). They open up against the Croatian side on Saturday, April 13 at 1:30 PM ET. Then on Sunday, April 14 the boys will play two games. They are set to face LA at 1:30 and close out the group stage at 8:30 PM against Penarol. The top two teams from each group will advance to the quarterfinals.
For the first time ever, MLS is putting on a U-15 GA Cup and the TFC U-15s fought hard to earn one of the just four spots in the tournament.
The format of the U-15 tournament is being called a “Ryder Cup” style tournament. The Ryder Cup is a biennial Golf tournament that pits a team of golfers from the United States against a team from Europe.
This year the four MLS sides will face off against four Mexican LIGA MX sides in a round robin. The U-15s will open up against Club Leon on April 17 at 10:00 AM ET. They will then play twice on April 18 battling CF Monterrey at 10 AM ET and then CD Guadalajara at 8:00 PM ET. The team will close out the round robin on April 19 vs. Cruz Azul at 3:30 PM.
The MLS and LIGA MX teams will be seeded following the round robin and each team will play once more against their same seeded LIGA MX.
Some of the GA Cup games will be available live through the MLS twitter and MLSSoccer.com.
Dallas Cup
The other tournament going on in DFW will have three TFC academy sides participating. The U-19, U-16 and U-12 TFC academy teams will all compete in the famed Dallas Cup.
For the third consecutive year, the U-19 (2000) team will feature in the Gordon Jago Super Group. The Super Group is the top tier of the tournament and features elite international competition.
This year the Reds were drawn into Group B and will face Real Salt Lake, CF Monterrey and Premier League side Arsenal. The Reds open the group stage on Sunday, April 14 vs. RSL then take on Monterrey on Monday, April 15th. They will close the group stage against Arsenal at a date and time still to be determined.
The top team from the group will qualify for the knockout rounds with one wild card joining the three group winners.
The U-16s (2003) will take on FC Dallas on Sunday, April 14, Las Vegas Sports Academy on Monday, April 15 and Diablos FC Tesistan from Mexico on Wednesday, April 17. Only the top team from the division will advance to the knockout rounds.
The youngest team in Dallas will be the Toronto FC U-12s (2007) who will open the tournament on Wednesday, April 17 against the Dallas Texans then take on Puma USA Kickers FC on Thursday, April 18 and close out the group against the Pittsburgh Riverhounds on Friday, April 19. The top team and two wildcards will make it out of the groups.
Best of luck to all the team down in Dallas this year. You can follow the academy on both Twitter and Instagram to stay up to date from Dallas.
