Senegal academy finishes third at Fifa tournament, FC Zurich triumph

There was bitter disappointment but still much praise for Senegal’s Academie Generation Foot, who were bundled out of the Blue Stars/Fifa Youth Cup semifinals on penalties on Thursday but bounced back to finish third.

The youngsters from Dakar were beaten in a post-match shootout after toping their group, ahead of the likes of defending champions FC Basle, eventual winners FC Zurich and French club Olympique Marseille.

In the last four, however, they drew 0-0 with Brazil’s Corinthians and then went out 4-3 on spot kicks to be denied a place in the final.

But the young Africans put their disappointment aside to thump Grasshoppers Zurich 3-0 to win the bronze and complete the two-day event on a high.

Blue Stars/FIFA Youth Cup : Après le FC Bâle, Génération Foot domine l'OM et rejoint les demi-finales
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FC Zurich won the men’s competition thanks to a 2-0 victory over Corinthians in a penalty shootout, and the Vancouver Whitecaps won the women’s competition 5-4 in a penalty shootout against FC Basle.

A total of 13 900 spectators attended the tournament at the Buchlern sports complex.

Gelson Fernandes, Fifa’s Director of Member Associations Africa said: “The participation of Academie Generation Foot was an absolute enrichment for the tournament. They showed how much quality there is in the team. The Blue Stars/Fifa Youth Cup was a great success. We were very happy to invite this team to Zurich because the work in Senegal is very good. We hope that in the future we will again have teams from Africa at the tournament that will give the spectators as much pleasure as Academie Generation Foot did this year.”

The academy from Dakar are only the eighth African side to be invited to compete in the only youth club tournament that world football’s governing body hosts, following in the footsteps of Al Ahly (Egypt), Asante Kotoko, FC Nania and Mysterious Dwarfs of Ghana; Abuja Unity Boys (Nigeria), TP Mazembe from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kaizer Chiefs, who competed in 2010.

The Blue Stars/Fifa Youth Cup is an international Under-19 tournament has been held without interruption – with the exceptions of 2020 and 2021 when Covid-19 struck – since 1939.

An invitation is highly sought after as most of world’s leading clubs have sent their juniors to participate and Manchester United, with 18 tournament successes, are the most successful in the event’s history.