User:Falastur2/New Generation League

The New Generation League is a European youth cup competition created in 2011, intended to be the youth equivalent of the UEFA Champions League and organised as a way of encouraging development of young players through high-level competition. In an effort to establish the competition, sides were cherry-picked from the top clubs of Europe for invitations to the first tournament, to be contested between 16 teams. In future seasons, the competition is due to be expanded to 24 teams, and possibly beyond. At present there is no qualification to the tournament aside from being offered a place on the reputation of the club's first team as well as their youth set-up.

The competition was presaged in the 2010–11 season when Manchester City's Elite Development Squad travelled to Amsterdam to play a friendly against Ajax, designed to test the waters for the future tournament. The friendly ended with a 1–1 draw.

The confirmed members of the inaugural competition are Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur of England, Barcelona of Spain, Wolfsburg of Germany, Inter Milan of Italy, Marseille of France, Sporting Lisbon of Portugal, PSV Eindhoven of Holland, Fenerbahçe of Turkey, Celtic of Scotland, Basel of Switzerland and Molde and Rosenborg of Norway.

Format
As of 2011, the New Generation League commences with a round-robin group stage of 16 teams, arranged in four groups of four teams.

The top two sides of each group qualify for the knock-out stage, held in Abu Dhabi in January.