Craig Liddle believes rival Europa Youth League rivals ‘will be wary’ of his Middlesbrough side
Craig Liddle believes there won’t be many clubs left in the UEFA Youth League who will relish being drawn against his buzzing young Boro team.
The club’s Under-19 players added another feather to their European caps on Tuesday as they battered Dynamo Kyiv 5-0 in a play-off to reach the last 16, with Liddle describing their progress as “unreal”.
Boro will discover who they will face in their next one-off tie when the draw takes place in Nyon on Monday, with the game to be played on February 22 or 23.
Liddle admits Boro would love to be handed a trip to Group E Champions League path winners Barcelona, who are one of several top clubs remaining in the tournament along with Paris St Germain and Benfica.
But while the Teessiders would revel in being pitted against one of Europe’s elite such as the Spanish giants, Liddle feels Boro have earned the right to be considered dangerous dark horses and a team to be avoided as well.
The Dynamo drubbing followed on the back of aggregate victories against Stade de Reims and Torino which included a pair of impressive 3-0 home victories.
“We are dreaming at the moment and we would all love to go to Barcelona,” Liddle said.
“It’s great for a club of this size to be punching against the likes of Barcelona in the next round – it’s unreal.
“We all want to test ourselves against the best, but whoever we get we will treat them with the greatest respect and we will go and try and win.
“I think teams will be wary of Middlesbrough as well because of the teams we have beaten and the results we have had.
“I think people will be looking at us and I don’t think many people will
be wanting to play against us.”
Boro produced an exhibition of clinical finishing to wreck Kyiv, with the result never in doubt from the moment that Callum Cooke gave them an early lead.
Alex Pattison added the second before half-time and Boro pulled further away after the break with Arnel Jakupovic, Hayden Coulson and captain Josef Wheatley all netting to complete the rout.
Liddle feels the result helped to illustrate why Boro’s Academy has gained a reputation for being one of the best in England.
“I’d like to think it showed that,” he said.
“We have got a lot of continuity in the academy.
“People have been here a lot of years staff-wise with Dave (Parnaby) and Ron (Bone) who has been here from the start.
“We have got a solid foundation and we continue to try and get better.
“We are really pleased with where we are going.”
“We always thought we could do well in this competition because we have got very good players,” Liddle added.
“We didn’t know a great deal about the opposition and how good they were going to be.
“But we have showed over the last few games that we are going to be a match for most.”