Young Lions Watch: Aston Villa Under-19s slip up in CEE Cup opener
Aston Villa slipped up in their opening game of the CEE Cup, with the Under-19s falling to a narrow defeat to Slavia Prague.
Noah Randazoo opened the scoring for the Czech hosts, getting in behind Aaron O’Reilly and slotting past Villa ‘keeper James Wright.
David Hajek doubled Slavia’s lead as Sil Swinkels completely missed a ball over the top and Frankie Ealing failed to make enough contact with a slide tackle, giving the forward an easy task to score.
Villa completely dominated the second half, with Brad Young setting up Kyrie Pierre who could only direct his shot onto the post as he stretched to meet the ball.
George Boateng’s side did get a goal back, with Kerr Smith taking advantage of a slip-up from Tomas Kolodziej to fire home, but it was too little too late.
Promising signs
Despite the defeat and both goals being easily preventable, there were promising signs in Villa’s Cup opener.
The Villans did control the second half and ultimately could only blame their defeat on their shoddy finishing during the second period.
Slavia cleared a string of chances off the line while Taylor-Jay Hart did have the ball in the net with the game still tied at 0-0, but he was flagged offside.
Ultimately, there is no shame in losing out to Slavia Prague as both they and eternal rivals Sparta Prague tend to do well in the CEE Cup.
The tournament is held in Prague and is designed as a method of showcasing talent, rather than being solely about results.
Of the last eight editions of the tournament, four finals have seen either Slavia or Sparta competing, though they have lost to the likes of Palmeiras who have won the last two tournaments.
Group A also saw Mexican side Tigres slip up to a host club as they lost 4-0 to Sparta Prague, showing that all foreign clubs tend to struggle against the hosts.
Villa have a chance to respond on Saturday morning (23 July) as they take on Ukrainian giants Dynamo Kyiv in their final group fixture.
In other Aston Villa news, Steven Gerrard still has not decided on a new captain for the new season.