Happy New Youth Cup and Spoon Trophy Big Barbs Conspiracy Theory

It's that time of year again, when we traditionally look back at the year that has gone, and look forward to the year that is coming.

Looking at the Youth Cup, I'd like to reflect on Season 6's competition, and plan for Season 7.

We can simply run the Youth Cup (and Shield) as before, which I'm quite happy to do, but we can also talk about any things we could do to make to make it more fun, this time around - or in the future.

The Youth Cup just isn't fun(ny) any more!

One of the most common complaints I've heard -- and share - is that the Youth Cup isn't competitive enough. And if it isn't competitive enough, it is fun, and if it isn't fun... that's a good reason not to want to play.

I mean, who - apart from Hertha Berlin boss Mark Stewart - enjoys a good beating at the hands of eleven cocky young men every Saturday night?

So that got me to thinking about what we could do to make it more fun for everyone else?

As things stand, the Youth Cup is run a bit like the Champions League or World Cup with a qualifying group stage followed by knockout rounds. These two stages are both seeded, i.e., the better teams are favoured against the weaker teams. The reason for doing this is to increase the chances of the better teams reaching the final stages and winning the tournament.

Which is why Beddows has never won it. Conspiracy, or what?

Even if it's not a conspiracy, it's not really fair. OK, as Mark explained to me, it rewards those teams that put the time and effort into recruiting the best youth players. But some of the complaints about lack of competition have come from the clubs with the best players.

Giving the likes of Mark a good thrashing every weekend can get tiresome. Which is why the big boys want someone who can stand up to them occasionally and give as good as they get.

So instead of aping real life - where some of the most tediously boring football is played in group stages of tournaments - how about we group together teams of similar strength so that every game will be more competitive and fun?

We can still seed and favour the stronger teams for the knockout stages, so that they get their reward for being the biggest and best. Those who are not so good will still get to play for the Shield, but what about the rest, the also rans?

Introducing... The Youth Spoon!

How about a new trophy for the teams 'too weak to compete' to compete for?

How about the Youth Spoon?

I have already negotiated with Sao Paulo gaffer Nick Wheels over naming and sponsorship rights (Spoon Liberation Army), and Nick assures me that Victor 'Big Barbs' Ibarbo would love nothing more than to give it to the winners (I think his actual words were something along the lines of, "It'll be right up her back passage").

How would this work?

Last season we had 60 teams entered into the Youth Cup. All the groups were seeded, the big teams won all their games, the little teams lost all theirs, and the big teams duly went on to win the Cup and Shield (well they would have done if Juventus capo DP hadn't bottled the final and Sevilla chief satsuma David Senior hadn't rudely nicked all those wins against better teams and put a nasty dent in the trophy which I still haven't been able to get rid of).

If we had a similar number of teams this season (and we're just over half way there already), we could have 10 groups of six playing 10 matches home and away in total, same as last season. However, instead of grouping the teams with the best and worst teams together in the same group, we would put all the best teams in one group and all the worst teams in another.

Every group would contain six teams that are all fairly evenly matched in terms of average rating of their top eleven youth players (including goalkeeper), rather than a range of teams from the best to the worst.

In terms of qualifying for the knockout stages, we'd have to do it slightly differently and give more places to the groups with the strongest teams, I think. But remember there will still be a Youth Shield knockout stage for those teams not good enough for the Cup itself, and now a Youth Spoon for some (if not all) of those not good enough for the Shield.

If we had the same number of teams with the same average ratings as last season (ten groups of six), then we'd have, say, the top five from the two strongest groups qualify for the Youth Cup knockout rounds, along with the top two from the next three strongest groups.

The sides finishing bottom in the two strongest groups would qualify for the Youth Shield knockouts along with the third and fourth placed teams in the next three strongest groups, the top two in each of the next three groups, and the first placed sides in the two weakest groups.

That leaves the bottom two in groups three to five, the third and fourth placed sides in groups six to eight, and the second and third placed teams in the two weakest groups qualifying for the Youth Spoon knockouts.

That still leaves twelve teams (out of sixty) who don't qualify for any of the knockouts at all, but that's still only one in five. Whereas this season 21 teams (just over a third) failed to qualify.

Maybe that all seems a bit too much and a bit too complicated? I think it's doable if that's what people want, and it should mean more meaningful and evenly-matched games, and more interest for the best and worst teams, as well as everyone in the middle. Plus, it's another trophy to win!