19 year-old Phil Airey will be playing for Newcastle in the Coppa Carnevale youth tournament in Italy, which is taking place over the next couple of weeks.
Phil Airey – Newcastle’s 19 year old 6′ striker – born in nearby Amble
The young Magpies squad flew off on Sunday for the competition, and their very first game will be later today against Fiorentina.
The Viareggio Cup World Football Tournament Coppa Carnevale (the official name of the tournament), is one of the most important youth football tournaments in the world, and is officially recognized by CONI, FIGC, UEFA and FIFA.
The competition is held each year in Viareggio, Tuscany and its surroundings, starting on the Monday following the first Carnival Sunday, which was last Sunday.
The tournament runs for a couple of weeks, and completes on the Monday following the third Carnival Sunday, and is therefore widely known as the Coppa Carnevale – the Carnival Cup.
Newcastle will play their first game today against Fiorentina at 5:00pm Newcastle time, then play Paraguayan Club Nacional and then Italian club Lecce as part of the group stages.
If the lads do well they could stay until a week on Monday, March 7th, when the final will be played.
Newcastle took a small 13-man squad to the tournament, and it included 18 year-old potential future star Haris Vuckic, the Slovenian U21 player, and Italian striker Fabio Zamblera.
Vuckic has already played 7 times for the Newcastle first team, and is one of the most promising young players coming through on Tyneside.
The 20-year-old Zamblera has had a rough time of it at Newcastle, since he joined just over three years ago, but he has not come through as the club had hoped- not yet anyway – and he’s been dogged by a succession of injuries too.
Phil Airey told the Evening Chronicle what his brief has been from Alan Pardew:
“The manager has told us to go out and impress him.” “That has been my brief this season – to catch the eye and get on the fringes of the first team.”
“If I can do that and get near the bench for the first team it will be great for me.” “There has been talk of going out on loan too.”
“However, I will just keep trying to the right things and work hard.”
We expect Alan Pardew to send a number of our young stars out on loan in August, and given the the club signs two new strikers in the summer, we would expect Phil to be one of those, sent to a Championship club hopefully.
The 13 man Newcastle squad named for the famous tournament is a strong group of young players:
Ole Soderberg, Dan Leadbitter, Conor Newton, Paul Dummett, Jeff Henderson, Greg McDermott, Brad Inman, Patrick McLaughlin, Phil Airey, Joan Edmundsson, Fabio Zamblera, Haris Vuckic.
One way to impress manager Alan Pardew is to win the whole thing! 😀
Wouldn’t that be something.
Comments welcome.
10 comments so far
Manx Magpie
Feb 22, 2011 at 12:10 PM
Comment #1according to the official website we’ve taken a 19-man squad
Overseas Newcastle - Cheik out Tiotes back pocket
Feb 22, 2011 at 12:35 PM
Comment #2gaaod louk a say
bt hy wat do i kno eh? 🙁
BeeGuy
Feb 22, 2011 at 12:36 PM
Comment #3This is a good chance for NUFC scouts to see some players from corners of the world not usually visited. And a chance to see who thrives under pressure.
AlwaysTOON
Feb 22, 2011 at 12:58 PM
Comment #4Joan Edmundsson will do very well! He got potenial!!
Davies
Feb 22, 2011 at 1:03 PM
Comment #5We still have Zamblera?
Davies
Feb 22, 2011 at 1:03 PM
Comment #6What about Moyo?
AndyE93
Feb 22, 2011 at 1:22 PM
Comment #7Davies i think moyo is just coming back from injury so he probably wouldn’t be up for quite a few games in a short period of time
gorskino10
Feb 22, 2011 at 2:01 PM
Comment #8Good luck to the boys i hope we impress or find other youngsters to snap up who impresses 🙂 forgot we still have Fabio, also on another note why dont we get Fabio Borini off Chelsea he is a FREE AGENT end of season and ive seen ALOT of him in reserves he is a true preditor in front of goal atm scored like 18 goals in 13 games or something he is amazing and being 19 he has the talent to start in the future for us.
Marty-Toon
Feb 22, 2011 at 6:51 PM
Comment #9Great to see we still have Zamblera!!!
Hope he is one for thhe future
AndyRobinson
Feb 22, 2011 at 8:47 PM
Comment #10@ AlwaysTOON i watched joan for gateshead and he never played well for them