Patrick Vieira’s men flew into Munich on Saturday ahead of a busy seven days in which they will play three friendly matches, against Bayern Munich, FC Nurnberg and Czech side Slovan Liberec.
After 10 days at a warm weather training camp in Croatia, the EDS kick off their week in Germany with a tough test against Bayern’s u21 age group on Monday evening.
The two sides met last term at u19 level in the UEFA Youth League, and while Ccrucial 0-0 draw away from home to secure passage to the knockout stages.
Although this encounter is only a friendly, Vieira will be hoping his young side can put on a good performance and chalk up another victory while improving fitness and match sharpness ahead of the new campaign which kicks off next month.
City EDS already have one win under their belts this pre-season – Slovenian side HNK Gorica were the victims as last term’s top scorer Jordy Hiwula helped himself to a hat-trick and newly-promoted striker Thierry Ambrose opened his account for the new year in the second half.
Ambrose is one of 10 youngsters who have made the step up from the u18s to EDS level this summer, and six of those have moved a year early as the club continues its policy of blooding young players by promoting up the age groups as soon as the player is ready.
Against Gorica, there was the opportunity for even more of the u18s squad to gain experience under Vieira with many of the more established names away on first team duty or with their national squads at the u19 European Championships.
While most of the u18s have now travelled to Scotland on the next leg of their pre-season adventures, it will still be a very young squad aiming to see off the challenge of Bayern.
Kick off is at 3pm BST and we’ll have a match report on mcfc.co.uk after the game.
