Danny McGrain and Stevie Frail lead Celtic into the annual Hong Kong Sevens this weekend.
Celtic finished runners-up to Kitchee in last season’s event and lifted the trophy in 2009 beating Rangers 1-0 in the final thanks to a goal from Paul McGowan.
The main tournament kicks-off on Saturday with Celtic playing HKFC Captain’s Select in Group B followed by games against Leicester City and West Ham.
Rangers, West Ham, Chelsea, Newcastle, Sunderland and Aston Villa are also taking part as well as a number of local clubs.
Last season’s Celtic side consisted of players from the u-17 and u-19 squads in a tournament with no age groups.
In the last eight Nick Feely saved three penalties in a shoot-out against Aston Villa with Marcus Fraser scoring the only goal of the game to beat Ajax in the semi-final.
The sevens event is the highlight of the footballing year in Hong Kong with a youth tournament and masters/veterans tournament running alongside the main professional competition.
Bringing in nine teams from the UK is an expensive business with the tournament gaining M status and backing from the local government due to the profile it attracts.
“This is a landmark decision for the Soccer Sevens,” said tournament chairman Tony Bratsanos. “The ‘M’ Mark funding and other forms of support will help the tournament realise its potential and become an even more significant event in the football calendar.
“We are extremely grateful to the Major Sports Events Committee for their guidance as we submitted our ultimately successful application. In addition, we are indebted to the Hong Kong Football Association for their staunch support.”
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We will do well to emulate the feat of last year’s side. Having seen both Tony Watt & Dylan McGeough saying they are not involved. So I suspect a very youthful side, great experience though and I know a hugely popular event.
Well just to let you know they two boys weren’t at last years tournament so tells you something there for a start many boys at Celtic not getting a chance I believe and celtic could lose out to them just like what happened with the boy Feruz they might all move on and forget Celtic because not giving a very good chance we hear that this under 19 team is best in Europe and up there in world and still not getting a chance so why not .
Who has said they are the best in the world ???
They are a very good group of lads, with 3-4 having the potential to make the step up to the first team.
Not getting a chance ?
How many of the 19s have already made first team debuts in the season just ended ???
Fraser – George – Twardzic – McGeough – Watt
How many first team games has Feruz played for Chelsea or even made the bench ???
Celtic have already started clearing a pathway for the most promising young players to get their chance. Already announced as leaving this season is
Mark Wilson – Dom Cervi – Dan Majstorovic – Pawel Brozec – Greg Spence – Tim Mjallby – Curtis Jones – Liam Gormley while others are out of contract such as Cha Du Ri – Glenn Loovens and I’d expect at least another 6-8 to be freed / sold.
If that doesn’t make room for young guns to progress I don’t know what will.
This time last year Dyland McGeough wasn’t a Celtic player and Tony Watt would have been 16 !!
Tony watt would have been 16 I think that very hard to believe as he is currently 18 1993 he is born. Yess I know and I agree but I believe a lot of these boys will head south as don’t think it will come this upcoming year with a lot of players set to come in to replace a lot of the rubbish had before and they have talent to play down England so why not !!!