The centre-back, now at Fulham, captained our Under-18s to consecutive finals in 2015 and 2016, but unfortunately tasted defeat in both showpiece events to Chelsea.
Adarabioyo described those losses as ‘the biggest blows’ of his career so far, he looks back on the campaigns with fondness as he channelled the disappointment to shape his future.
CITY+ | Subscribe to watch our FA Youth Cup semi-final live
Since departing the Etihad Stadium in 2020, the towering defender has become an instrumental figure in the backline of Marco Silva’s side.
After helping the Cottagers to the Championship title last season, he’s gone on to feature 15 times in the top flight for a Fulham side who are pushing for a top-eight finish and the 25-year-old believes his involvement in the FA Youth Cup helped him become the player he is today.
“At the time we were just focused on winning. The FA Youth Cup was probably the biggest blows throughout my time and in my 15 years of playing that I’ve experienced,” he said.
“It did help me to deal with low moments like that, losing two finals, which obviously went to every youth player at the Club. You do gain experience from losing.
“Coming away from those defeats, it pushes you to strive for more. Every youth player wants to win the FA Youth Cup and I wasn’t able to do so.
“So it’s helped me push to achieve more elsewhere.”
City booked our place in the 2015 final after victories against Coventry, Stoke, Crewe and Leicester.
But we were unfortunately beaten by a strong Chelsea side, which included Tammy Abraham, Fikayo Tomori and Dominic Solanke, losing 5-2 on aggregate.
We repeated the trick the following season, but again lost to Chelsea in the final - this time 3-1 over two legs.
Regardless of missing out on silverware, Adarabioyo was proud of the progress made by his team-mates across both tournaments.
“Both campaigns we always knew we could get to the final,” he added. “We knew it would be us against Chelsea, to be fair.
“I think we played Arsenal in the semi-final [in 2016] as well which was a tough game because they were a good side, but we always knew we had a good enough team to get to the finals.
“At that time, Chelsea were Chelsea who had amazing players and so did we to be fair and we just came up short in both finals.”
City’s Under-18s have come of age in the FA Youth Cup this season, scoring 15 goals in four wins on their way to a mouth-watering semi-final meeting with Arsenal on Tuesday 4 April at 19:00 (UK) - the final game of our Big City Weekender.
And Adarbioyo advice to our class of 2023 is to leave everything out on the field against the Gunners.
“I would just say give it their all,” he said.
“For a lot of them, especially the second year scholars, it’ll be their last chance to win the FA Youth Cup and it’ll definitely be something they want to achieve in their career.
“Just to give it their all, really.”
