As a reward for an excellent 2018/19 campaign, a squad of Young Gers will be taking part in the UEFA Youth League next season.
It’s a fantastic opportunity for the club to pit its homegrown players against those of some of the biggest clubs in world football.
Rangers will be entering an U19 side. Therefore, the likes of Dapo Mebude, Josh McPake, and Nathan Young-Coombes should all be involved.
But, how does it work? The Rangers Youth Updates Twitter account gave a rundown of the process on Monday morning.
Of course, the ‘Champions of Scotland’ tag was earned through the 3-2 Youth Cup final victory over Celtic in April.
As we can see, there are some big names entering the competition at the same time as Rangers. Porto are the club that particularly stick out. Europa League winners as recently as 2011, they are a veritable factory for top quality talent.
However, they aren’t the most high profile competition the Young Gers could face.
What an incentive that list of potential opponents should provide for Mebude and co.
Head of the Gers Academy, Craig Mulholland, recently spoke of the club’s desire to test its youngsters as rigorously as possible [RangersTV]. For that reason, it looks likely they will follow Hibernian in dropping out of the SPFL Reserve League in search of better quality fixtures.
With some of the clubs mentioned here though, it certainly looks like there are exciting challenges ahead in the Youth League.
