3 endearing stories of non-mainstream football clubs

Modified Mar 16, 2021 14:29 GMT

#1 FK Metta - Youngest football team in Europe

Football School (FS) Metta is a football academy in Latvia. It was founded only 14 years ago, in 2006. Since 2012, its Football Club, FK, has played in Latvia's top division - Virsliga.

Since FS Metta were founded, they have had an exclusive deal with Latvian University. Players are offered a scholarship and a chance to study in their time off. That is why fans have nicknamed Metta as 'students'.

One of Metta's main vision is to become a school where a player can become an educated professional both on a football field and outside it.

In 2013, they started a programme called 'football classes'. It was a new way of teaching and nurturing footballers in Latvia. Metta academy players from the same age group studied in the same class together.

That meant Metta youth players grew up together and developed strong bonds and chemistry with each other.

It could be the best time to start following FK Metta. Let's find out why.

Do the maths: FS Metta started its operations in 2006. The first players to enter their football academy were born in 2000 and 2001. That means football players who have gone through the FS Metta academy are now making their debuts in the first team.

Last season, 16 academy players born between 2000 and 2004 played for FK Metta. But during preparations for next season, which started last week, five more youngsters trained with the first team.

That made Students comfortably the youngest football team in Europe's top leagues, with an average age of 19.5 years.

That even led to a very rare instance: in 2020, FK Metta's two oldest players were only 23 years old. The club jokingly refers to them as 'veterans'.

It is also worth following Metta youngsters' progress with the Latvian national teams. An interesting fact: since June 2018, every Latvian U-17, U-18, U-19 or U-21 national team match has had at least one player that has come through the FS Metta academy.

The class of 2001 for Metta has been especially successful. This age group has had 13 players in youth (U-17 and above) in Latvian national teams. In 2017, nine of them played in the same game for the Latvian U-17 team.

Last year in September, Raimonds Krollis became the first FS Metta academy player in the Latvian senior team. Hopefully, he would be the first of many in the very near future.

Edited by Bhargav