Men Tournament

GNK Dinamo Zagreb is the record champion and the pre-eminent club in Croatia. Among its greatest achievements, alongside its domestic dominance since 1992, are winning the Yugoslav Cup, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1967 (the precursor to the UEFA Cup) and regular participation in the UEFA Champions League.

Dinamo Zagreb is renowned for its outstanding youth development work, carried out at its world-famous football academy. Generations of young players have left their mark on European football. Among them, Zvonimir Boban, Luka Modrić, Mateo Kovačić, Dejan Lovren and Joško Gvardiol stand out. The foundations are laid by a large team of experienced coaches.

Today’s Dinamo football academy operates according to a clearly defined development philosophy: the training of technically skilled, tactically intelligent and strong-willed players who are ready for the highest level of football. Particular emphasis is placed on the individual development of each player’s potential, education and appropriate sporting upbringing, modern training methods, sports medicine and analytics, as well as continuous collaboration between the first team and the academy.

Virtually every year, the bulk of the Croatian youth national teams come from Zagreb’s talent pool, which has also produced numerous Croatian senior internationals. The lads from the Croatian capital are certainly aiming to have their say in the race for the title at the latest edition of the Blue Stars Zürich Youth Cup.

FC Blue Stars is one of the oldest football clubs in Switzerland and, as host of the Blue Stars Zürich Youth Cup, is naturally a fixture in this traditional tournament. The club runs various youth teams, in which a total of around 180 junior players compete, ensuring a broad base of talent.

The U19s compete in the Junior League B Promotion. Thanks to the club’s strong youth development programme, the first team is continually bolstered by its own homegrown players. This is a clear sign of the club’s true identity and the great importance placed on its youth development.

The lads are highly motivated to compete against the world’s best youth teams at this year’s Blue Stars Zürich Youth Cup over the Ascension Day weekend and perhaps spring a surprise or two. Come and support them as they give it their all!

Racing Club de Strasbourg Alsace has a turbulent history marked by numerous ups and downs. In 2011, the club had to start afresh as a newly founded side in the fifth tier of French football. Since then, it has worked its way up season by season and re-established itself firmly in Ligue 1. The club colours are blue and white, which is why the Alsatians, like the French national team, are nicknamed ‘Les Bleus’.

As a pioneer in the field of youth development, Racing Club de Strasbourg Alsace established a structure for training young players as early as 1972. In 1974, the club was among the first in France to set up a so-called ‘Centre de formation’.

Renamed the Racing Mutest Académie in 2019, the centre operates under the motto “Learn to be small to become great”. Indeed, some of the most illustrious names in French football hail from the club based in the Alsatian metropolis, such as Léonard Specht and Albert Gemmrich. From Strasbourg, some very well-known managers also made their mark on the football world: Arsène Wenger, who played a key role in the club’s youth department in the early 1980s, and Gilbert Gress, who led RCS to their first league title in 1979 and subsequently achieved cult status in Switzerland as a club and national team manager, as well as a long-standing TV pundit.

Many of the players trained at Racing went on to establish themselves as professionals in Strasbourg and elsewhere. Some of them went on to become internationals and played for major European clubs. The first was José Cobos (Paris Saint-Germain, Espanyol Barcelona). Kevin Gameiro (PSG, Sevilla FC, Atlético Madrid), Martin Djetou (Monaco, Parma, Fulham) and Olivier Dacourt (Everton, AS Roma, Inter Milan) also put Racing on the map in the major European leagues. Morgan Schneiderlin (Manchester United, Everton) is the most recent example in this line-up. All of them also wore the French national team jersey.

Since 1896, FCZ has been synonymous with football in the heart of the city of Zurich. The city club was founded by former members of the three local clubs FC Turicum, FC Excelsior and FC Viktoria. FCZ subsequently developed into one of the best-known and most successful clubs in Switzerland.

At international level, it first achieved notable success in European club competitions in the 1960s and 1970s, and FCZ has also enjoyed numerous international highlights in more recent years. Furthermore, throughout its history, FC Zurich has consistently provided players for the national team and various youth squads.

FC Zurich’s U19 team enters this year’s Blue Stars Zurich Youth Cup as the 2024 edition’s finalist. In the 2024 final, the team was only defeated in the final match against FC Red Bull Salzburg.

In 2023, the historic Zurich club won the prestigious youth tournament for the sixth time in its history. In the final, FCZ prevailed against the Brazilians of Sport Club Corinthians Paulista in a penalty shoot-out.

FC Zurich are heading into this year’s tournament with ambitious goals once again. The team comprises players from the U19 and U17 squads and is managed by U19 head coach Sven Lüscher, supported by assistant coach Alain Nef – both former professional players. This season, the team celebrated a major success with a 2-0 victory in the Cup final against FC Basel 1893.

Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona, also known as Espanyol Barcelona, is the first Spanish club to have been founded exclusively by Spaniards. In the Catalan capital, Espanyol has been in direct competition with its great rival FC Barcelona and its famous academy, La Masia, throughout its history.

Despite having fewer resources, Espanyol regularly produces its own talent. Youth development is a key part of the club’s identity – even though many top talents often move to the rival club. In recent decades, Espanyol has nevertheless celebrated numerous successes, such as reaching several national youth finals.

Espanyol’s youth academy (‘Cantera’) is based at the Ciutat Esportiva Dani Jarque. As is customary with many Spanish clubs, the ‘Cantera’ plays a central role in scouting talent at an early stage. The selected players progress through the various age groups before attempting to seize the opportunity to make the leap to the first team whilst playing for the reserve side, Espanyol ‘B’. However, transfers of promising youngsters to other clubs are also intended to generate revenue. Highly rated are Arnau Cases (who made his debut for Espanyol ‘B’ and plays for Spain’s U17s), Joel Rodríguez (Spain U18), Ian Cruz (Spain U17), David Muñoz (Spain U16) and Denys Cruz, who has also made his debut for Espanyol ‘B’. Thomas Dean is already a Chilean senior international and Itzel Colocho a senior international for Panama. 

Grasshopper Club Zurich (GC), founded on 1 September 1886 by the Englishman Tom E. Griffith, is the oldest football club in the city of Zurich. It has grown to become the nation’s most traditional and successful sports club and an institution. GC owes its emblem and name to the green grasshopper.  Known as a multi-sport club, GC has shaped Swiss football for decades, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s under managers such as Hennes Weisweiler, Ottmar Hitzfeld and Christian Gross. GC celebrated its greatest international success in the 1977/78 season, when the club reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup, where it was eliminated by the French club SEC Bastia. In 2005, the professional division was converted into Neue Grasshopper Fussball AG. Following several changes of ownership, GC has been part of the LAFC Group since 2024.

The club, which comprises ten other sports sections in addition to the football division, is renowned for its sustainable youth programme. The foundation for this is the modern campus in Niederhasli/Dielsdorf, which opened in 2005. The facility includes an education, training and coaching centre. Players from the various junior teams are selected for the national team of their respective age group. In the U-19 youth division, GC reached the cup final of the 24/25 season and finished second in the Red & Gold Tournament.

Vitória Sport Clube is one of Portugal’s established clubs and has mostly been competing for UEFA Cup places over the last 20 years. Its crest features D. Afonso Henriques, the first King of Portugal. The “Conquistadores” (Conquerors), as they are known, play in black and white, symbolising the club’s openness to welcoming all people without discrimination based on skin colour or social status. Over the years, the “Clube do Rei” (the King’s Club), as it is often called, has competed successfully in various national and international competitions.

The club is recognised by the Portuguese Football Federation as a 5-star training club, as it combines tradition, vision and quality in the development of young players. In the 1990/91 season, the U19 team wrote a golden chapter in Vitória’s history when they won the Campeonato Nacional de Juniores A I Divisão.

The U19 team is the final stage of the Conquistadores’ youth development programme. Thanks to outstanding performances in this age group, Vitória Sport Clube regularly competes against other leading Portuguese clubs in the knockout stages. Fernando Meira, Pedro Mendes, Flávio Meireles and Ariza Makukula are just a few of the names who have played for the U19 team. More recently, players such as Tomás Händel, Dani Silva and Alberto Costa have progressed through the youth teams (U15, U17 and/or U19) and made their debut for the first team.

FCW is a cultural treasure for Winterthur: small, fine, loud, different, colourful. The club, which has also adopted a social charter, rightly describes itself as ‘the region’s largest youth home’. Certified as an official training centre of the Swiss Football Association (SFV), FCW supports and develops around 420 children and young people across more than 20 teams. A central pillar is dual training. Alongside sporting development, great importance is placed on academic or vocational education. A dedicated dual training coach supports the young people with matters such as apprenticeships, school and social life. To expand its catchment area, FCW works closely with partner clubs. Since January 2026, this network has been expanded to include five new clubs, including FC Bülach, FC Bassersdorf and FC Hinwil.

FC Winterthur’s youth academy is one of the most successful in the country and has produced a number of professionals who have made a name for themselves both nationally and internationally, such as Manuel Akanji, Remo Freuler, Steven Zuber, Fabian Frei and Admir Mehmedi.

The U19 squad is still relatively young, as until recently FCW had U18 and U21 teams with no age group in between. Among their achievements are qualifying for the play-offs, which the team has done for the past two years, and even finishing in 4th place last season.