FIFA Competitions

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The Blue Stars/ FIFA Youth Cup is an annual football youth tournament in the Swiss capital of Zurich. The history of the tournament goes back as far as 71 years, when it was held as Blue Stars Tournament by the same-named FC, a tradition-rich football club established in 1898, for the very first time. Since 1991 the tournament is held under the auspices of FIFA (name change in 1995 to Blue Stars/ FIFA Youth Cup). Famous footballers who played in their youth at this tournament include the FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter himself (FC Siders), Bobby Charlton (Manchester United), the late Bobby Moore (WestHam United) and George Best (Manchester United), David Beckham (Manchester United) and Kakà (Sao Paulo FC).

The 71^st Blue Stars/ FIFA Youth Cup took place on May 20/ 21 at the sports facility Buchlern. A total of ten teams competed in summery weather with temperatures soaring up to 27C, ie four Swiss teams and six teams from abroad. Since the last tournament, Sony (who is Official FIFA Partner) has been working with FIFA on plans to bring in a team from China. Due to this effort, the reigning U19 champions of China Beijing Guoan FC participated as first Chinese team ever in the Blue Stars/ FIFA Youth Cup history, finishing 8^th at this tournament.

As previous year, the final was battled out between two Swiss teams. This year, FC Basel who finished second in 2008 prevailed 1:0 over local Grasshopper Club. Third place was taken by last year's winner FC Zurich, beating Brasilian C.R. Flamengo into fourth place (2:0).

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