By Daniel Robertson
English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur FC join Chelsea as the London duo of teams looking for their first Dallas Cup Super Group championship. The north London side brings their Academy team to Dallas Cup XXXI looking to duplicate Liverpool's success in 2008 when they strolled to the championship and would become the second team from London to win the title in nearly 20 years as West Ham United was the last club from England's capital to win the Dallas Cup Super Group in 1992.
The Tottenham Academy, which has produced such current English talents as Peter Crouch, Ledley King and Sol Campbell, is bringing a team rich with talent all across the field. The provisional Tottenham roster features five players with first team experience in the English Football League setup. Leading this group is England Under-19 international attacking midfielder John Bostock. Bostock, who was purchased by Spurs from Crystal Palace for a fee that could rise well over 1 million pounds, has the unique honor of being the youngest ever player of both Crystal Palace and Tottenham. Bostock made his competitive debut for Tottenham in their UEFA Cup match against Dinamo Zagreb at the age of just 16 years and 295 days. More recently Bostock was loaned out to League One side Brentford scoring 2 goals in 9 appearances.
Spurs will be strong in defense as well with two players at the back having league experience in Swedish goalkeeper Oscar Jansson and English defender Calum Butcher. Jansson, who logged seven games for League Two side Exeter City in 2009, should start in goal for Tottenham while Butcher, a central defender who spent time on loan with London League Two side Barnet Town, has featured on the Tottenham bench for UEFA Cup games in the past.
The other two Spurs players coming to Dallas Cup with English Football League experience are defender/midfielder Samuel Cox, who spent time with Cheltenham Town and Torquay United, and England U-19 international midfielder Dean Parrett who has played for Aldershot Town as well as receiving good marks in his only Tottenham first team start, an 89 minute appearance in Ukraine for Tottenham's round of 32 UEFA Cup tie against Shakhtar Donetsk.
The rest of Tottenham's roster is a combination of professional reserves and their U18 Premier League Academy side which is currently 2nd in their group table. Tottenham will open the Dallas Cup Super Group with the first feature stadium game inside Pizza Hut Park against host Dallas Texans at noon on Sunday, March 28th. They'll continue the tournament the next day at noon with an exciting matchup against the Japanese National Team before finishing at noon on Wednesday against Tigres of Mexico.
Stay tuned to the Dallas Cup Blog for the final six team previews as we have just 6 days left until the start of Dallas Cup XXXI on March 28th.
Past Super Group Previews
No comments:
Post a Comment