A squad of 20 Bermuda under-13 footballers will be leaving the Island this Saturday for what promises to be a demanding two-week tour of Holland and Belgium.

The trip, which is being sponsored by ACE Insurance, is seen as an integral part of Bermuda Football Association's (BFA) youth development drive.

Over the course of the tour, the squad will play in a total of seven matches and a one-day tournament against a variety of club youth teams, both amateur and professional. They will also have the chance to watch a number of games live in the Dutch League as well as the training sessions of both senior and youth teams at some of Holland's elite clubs.

BFA Technical Director Kenny Thompson, who will be part of a four-man management team on the trip to Europe, believes that tours such as this represent "fantastic educational opportunities, both in footballing and cultural terms" and are "absolutely essential" to the development of the local game.

"We have taken boys to Europe in the past and it is all part of the ongoing development process that we are engaging in," he said.

"It is often very difficult for players to progress in an environment like Bermuda, where many of our elite players, both at junior and senior levels, enjoy a great deal of domestic success without having to work that hard.

"The idea now is to expose Bermudian footballers at an early stage in their development to top-class opponents so that they can appreciate from a young age what they have to aspire to if they want to be the best."

"Hopefully," he continued, "by the time some of these players reach the senior level they will already be used to playing at the top level which is, of course, a completely different ball game compared to our local leagues."

In assessing the overall strength of the touring party, Thompson admitted that he simply did not know how good his team could be although he pointed out that there was no better way to uncover Bermuda's stars of the future than by throwing them in at the deep end and seeing who sinks and who swims.

"We believe that the squad is rich in potential," he maintained, "but whether they can compete in Europe is an unknown.

"From previous experience, it has usually taken about two or three matches to get used to the added intensity of the football and the extremely high technical level of European juniors. But we hope above all that they learn from it.

"They will quickly find out that whereas in Bermuda you can get away with errors over the course of a match, in Europe you will get punished. It should be quite a learning experience for both the players and the coaches."

Bermuda under 13 squad: Ajani Abouy-Lovell, Tahj Bell, Giniko Butterfield, Aaron Calderon, Mark Crawford, Kilian Elkinson, Aaron Evans, Jahde Eve, Harold Houston, Justin Hutchings, Reggie Lambe, K'Wonde Lathan, Dante Leverock, Tyler Masters, Matthew Sinclair, Tumani Steede, Marcelos Thomas, Ryan Tyrell, Charles Watson, Nahki Wells.

Support staff: Kenny Thompson, Scott Morton (coach), Shannon Morrissey (coach), Joe Trott (manager/coach).