Jadon Sancho and Champions League stars give easy inspiration for Man City's FA Youth Cup final

As Manchester City youngsters prepare for the FA Youth Cup final on Friday, they don't need to look far for inspiration.

Phil Foden is the newly-crowned FWA Footballer of the Year, leading the line for Pep Guardiola's champions of the world...and he got trounced when he was coming through! Nobody doubted Foden's potential, but that didn't stop his City team losing 6-2 on aggregate to Chelsea in a two-legged FA Youth Cup final in 2016 that saw Reece James, Trevoh Chalobah, Marc Guehi, Mason Mount and Callum Hudson-Odoi in the winning team and Conor Gallagher an unused sub.

In the City team that night was Jadon Sancho, a recruit from Watford's academy tipped for big things until he disagreed with the club over his future and was sold to Dortmund in 2017. Sancho struggled with a big-money move to United, yet has had one of the most successful seasons out of anyone that started it at Old Trafford as he made the Champions League final on Tuesday night back on loan at Dortmund.

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A Dortmund substitute for the closing moments in Paris was Felix Nmecha, who suffered FA Youth Cup heartache himself when he was part of the 2019 side that lost in a penalty shootout to Liverpool. Nmecha would go on to make his senior debut for City but left on a free transfer in 2021 to join Wolfsburg before making the move to Dortmund last summer; Jamie Bynoe-Gittens was also on the Dortmund bench on Tuesday, having spent two years at City.

The pair now await the winners of Real Madrid and Bayern Munich from the second semi-final, and Real contain another member of the losing City