The Aberdeen Under 20s will travel down to Fife on Saturday for their first pre-season game and take on Cowdenbeath.
The side are managed by ex Scotland player Colin Cameron and will play in the Scottish First Division next season after getting promoted last season, so it will be a good test for Neil Cooper's young side.
The Friendly will take place at Central Park, Cowdenbeath on Saturday 14th July.
As each season starts afresh, hope springs eternal that this is the season where the Dons get themselves back up to the right end of the table. But it's not all about the first team, for within the younger age groups at Pittodrie, youthful optimism is always the order of the day. We recently welcomed eight fresh recruits into Neil Cooper's U20 side, and to find out more about Aberdeen's stars of the future, we spoke to the man who discovered them, AFC Youth Academy Chief Scout Colin Grant.
"It is new adventure for eight different players. Two from Ireland, two from Edinburgh, two from Glasgow, one local lad and one from the North.
"Marcus Campanile and Zach Szemis have both arrived from our Edinburgh Centre. Marcus played a couple of trial games for us back at the beginning of the year, as did Zach. Both play with Edina Hibs in the juvenile league down in Edinburgh. Campanile is a midfielder and Szemis is a right back, who can play centre back as well. They showed up well in the trial games and then they came up here for the Easter week and everyone was impressed by them, their ability on the ball and the way they handled themselves.
"Scott Ferries is a right sided midfielder from Tain and has been in the system since he was 11 years old. He played for the pro youth 13s, 14s, 15s and 17s and obviously he is now going full time. Stuart Close is local lad who has been in our system for two years. Stuart, who is a centre half, went to Bucksburn Academy and as well as playing for the U17s last season he also featured at the tail end of last year's campaign in the U19 squad.
"Jamie Hamilton and Scott Macaulay are both from our Glasgow centre. Jamie can play wide left or wide right, he is an exciting player who can dribble with the ball. He is good with the ball at his feet. He creates havoc and has good pace. Scott is a goalkeeper was originally with Rangers. He has come to us as I have been watching him for a while. It was good to finally get our man so to speak.
"Alan O'Sullivan is a striker. He has been coming over from Dublin for about a year and a half now. He is an U15 and U16 Republic of Ireland International. Sean Hume I saw at the Galway Cup last year and brought him over a couple of times and he also impressed the coaches. Sean is a centre half.
"It brings the number of players from Ireland to eight. Josh Magennis and Niall McGinn both play for Northern Ireland and we have Jonny Hayes, Joe Shaughnessy, Matthew McMahon, Danny Rogers from the Republic as well Sean and Alan.
"There are more youth players playing football on a Sunday morning in Dublin that there is in the whole of Scotland. There are over 100,000 kids playing football in Dublin so it is a hotbed of potential talent. I go across to the Galway and Foyle Cups and I also go to Limerick for the Kennedy Cup which is an U14 competition with all the best school boys. I have picked up a couple of goalkeepers who are now in the system. The quicker we can get players into the system the better."
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glasgow sheep 27 posts
Stewart 16 posts
Tyrant 8 posts
dave_min 7 posts
http://www.afc.co.uk/articles/20120711/meet-the-new-u20-players_2212158_2844941
Alan O'Sullivan 24/03/1995 Centre Forward Rep Ireland
Sean Hume 13/03/1996 Central Defence Rep Ireland
Scott Ferries 07/03/1996 Right Mid / Wing Scottish
Scott Macaulay 05/08/1995 Goalkeeper Scottish
Jamie Hamilton 06/07/1995 Right Mid / Wing Scottish
Marcus Campanile 16/03/1996 Centre Midfield Scottish
Zach Szemis 13/05/1996 Right Back / Central Defence Scottish
Stuart Close 06/11/1995 Central Defence Scottish