The Malta U-17 squad departed for Serbia yesterday ahead of their participation in the Group Eight tournament of the 2015 UEFA U-17 Championship.
The Maltese team face an arduous challenge in Belgrade as they will play against Serbia, Finland and the Netherlands.
The Maltese youths meet Serbia in their opening match tomorrow, kicking off at 2pm.
On Sunday, Malta face the Netherlands before wrapping up their participation against Finland next Wednesday.
In the 2014 UEFA U-17 Cham-pionship, played here last May, Malta produced their best perfor-mance in the tournament against the Dutch, scoring two goals in a 5-2 defeat.
Myles Beerman, a member of Manchester City’s academy, is the only foreign-based player in the squad named by coach Sergio Sol-dano for this tournament.
Malta U-17 squad
T. Aquilina (Sliema), M. Beerman (Man. City), J. Borg (Valletta), Z. Brincat (Mosta), B. Caruana (Hiber-nians), R.C. Fenech (Valletta), A.J. Friggieri (Sliema), N. Ghio (Attard), C. Grech (Hibs), M. Guillaumier (St Andrew’s), J. Magri Overend (St Andrew’s), N. Pulis (Valletta), M. Sansone (Sliema Wanderers), A. Vella (Qormi), J. Vella (Sliema), D. Xuereb (Hibs), K. Xuereb (Hibs), C. Zammit (Hibs).
MFA discussions
Meanwhile, a host of foreign scouts were present for a series of training sessions and friendly games played by Malta’s youth selections (1996-97, 1998, 1999) over the past few days.
Scouts representing Italian clubs Genoa and Lecce and an observer who works for Catania were in Malta to run the rule over some promising players as part of the MFA’s on-going drive to help the country’s brightest talents move to foreign clubs at a young age.
The director of Sheffield United was also here to assess training facilities and hold talks with the Malta FA on ways how to further improve the collaboration bet-ween the two entities.
Sheffield United were spon-sored by the Malta Tourism Authority a few years back.
Paolo Bigonzoni, a top-ranking official of Italian club Lodigiani Calcio, also met with MFA officials earlier this week.
Bigonzoni runs a sports com-plex in Borghesiana, on the out-skirts of Rome.