AcademyYouth League preview: 'We have earned this challenge, let's do the club proud'
Barry Lewtas has challenged Liverpool U19s to make themselves and the club proud when they face VfB Stuttgart in the UEFA Youth League last 32.
The young Reds qualified for the knockout stages after a point from their final game - a 2-2 draw with Girona - secured a top-22 finish in the league phase.
Stuttgart finished fifth in the table and their four victories from six outings included a 3-2 win away at Juventus.
Kick-off when the sides meet in Germany on Tuesday is 1pm GMT and you can watch the game live on LFCTV and LFCTV GO.
Head coach Lewtas spoke to Liverpoolfc.com to preview the clash…
On the opening games of 2025 so far…
It was a strange game against West Brom. We dominated the possession and created lots of chances and we were punished. They were a good side, but I was really disappointed by the way we approached certain parts of the game. Tottenham, I thought we played our part in what was a good game and again we created good chances but didn’t score and then conceded two late goals, which was disappointing. We knew going into the Southampton game on Friday we weren’t a million miles off and there were certain parts of our game which were good and just certain things needed correcting.
We were really good in the first half against Southampton, but we then needed to make a few changes with players who were needed for the Plymouth FA Cup game. In fairness to Southampton, you could see in the second half why they are in a really good run of form. They pushed hard but we defended well and in the end we just couldn’t hold on. It was pleasing, though, that we were able to put one or two things right that haven’t been quite where we wanted them to be.
On the challenge of Stuttgart in the UEFA Youth League…
It’s something that we have earned. We had a real tough six games in the group stage, there’s no question of that, and you have to plot your way through a different type of group than what we were used to before. In the end we were disappointed by our performance against RB Leipzig and we had to go to Girona in the final game and ended up playing half of the game with 10 men. We have certainly earned our way into this knockout stage. Stuttgart are a really good team so it’s a real challenge but also one we are looking forward to.
On the qualities of Stuttgart…
A really good team. They have done well in the competition so far, they have real quality and a clear way of playing, so we know we are going to have to be at our best if we are going to beat them, but that is our intention.
On the players embracing this opportunity to play knockout football for the club in Europe…
For us, it’s a fantastic opportunity. If you look at Ben Doak, Lewis Koumas and Jayden Danns, they could still be playing for us in this competition if they weren’t on loan in the Championship. That kind of shows where we are, as we are able to promote U19 players into the Championship, and other boys then get their opportunity at this level and they have performed really well. It hasn’t always gone our way but we’ve certainly done well to plot our way through the group and now we are going to do our best to get through this tie.
On his striking options with Ranel Young suspended and Jayden Danns now on loan…
Me and Bridgey [U18s boss Marc Bridge-Wilkinson] know how it works in terms of selection and players, and we are really kind of proud of the work we do and how we promote boys. We are not thinking about who we could have, could have had. This is somebody else’s opportunity to take the shirt and do themselves and the club proud. It’s about who is available and we want to try to give them the best platform we can because we want them to try to progress like some of the other boys have done.