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Youth soccer tourney puts accent on quality

Junior teams from world renowned soccer clubs such as Glasgow Rangers of Scotland and FC Porto of Portugal will add a touch of quality to this month's Bermuda Youth Tournament.

But more importantly their presence will enable Bermuda's own Under-15 national side to step up their preparation for the Junior World Cup in two years' time.

The fourth team in the tournament will be the United States Olympic Area Three side.

"By having another professional club's junior team participate, it's going to give us a chance to play more quality teams,'' said tournament co-organiser Jon Beard. "What we want to be able to do is go into internatioanl games with good match experience behind us.'' In organising this year's event, Bermuda Football Association emphasised quality over quantity, ensuring that top teams would compete rather than attempting to increase the number of participants.

"We wanted to keep a quality tournament and obviously right now we know what we can handle. We don't want to be expanding something that becomes unmanageable,'' explained Beard.

Other countries and clubs have enquired about entering future events, among them Trinidad and Tobago, who recently pulled out of this year's tournament, and a side from Italy.

But Beard insisted the BFA would not simply accept new teams for the sake of making the tournament bigger.

"For the time being we will stick with four teams because I think it gives our players three good games -- four if they reach the final.

"If you brought in six teams you would have to turn it into two leagues and you would still end up playing three or four games, so there is not a heck of a difference.'' This year's Youth Tournament will be held at National Stadium from July 14-18.