The cliche goes that you learn far more from your defeats than your victories, and that is certainly the case within the Manchester City academy after a difficult exit from Europe last week.
City's under-19s fell 2-0 down at Hajduk Split in the UEFA Youth League last week, and could only find one goal back to crash out of Europe at the last-16 stage in front of a large, vocal and partisan crowd in Croatia. Throwing their best players into difficult atmospheres and situations is something City see as important - but so is winning, and the mood inside the academy has been a disappointed one over the last week.
So the sight of an FA Youth Cup quarter-final against Oxford on Tuesday provides and opportunity for City to bounce back, and there is hope that this time it can be a large City crowd making the difference - not an opposition one.
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"We believe that group of players had a chance of going even further in the competition than it did," under-18s coach Ben Wilkinson tells MEN Sport.
"We're disappointed about the outcome of the game, albeit a great learning experience for the players, away in Europe in a difficult game. The environment, a hostile atmosphere, there were good numbers in the ground.
"It was a perfect development opportunity in terms of what we want from our best players, but obviously disappointed to go out of the competition in a game where we win that game eight or nine times out of ten. But we all know this can happen in cup football.
"One of the challenges we face is trying to give them enough of those experiences that make it as close to first team football as we possibly can. It was a great experience for them, exactly what we want and the environments we want to place them in and we find those games - in the last year we played Leeds away in the PL2 [with over 20,000 fans], Southampton away in the cup final - that's exactly where we want our players to be. The more opportunities we can put them in the better.
"But ultimately we want to try and come out of those games with another opportunity by progressing to the next round. We're disappointed by the result, but long term there's probably a lot to take out of it.
"They have to learn quick here. Those players involved last Tuesday and will play this Tuesday, they need to be able to move on. Also taking it a step further and looking at their own performance how they can do better and how as a team we can avoid that happening again in similar circumstances in a knockout competition, that will be really important."
The chance to book an FA Youth Cup semi-final place is one way for the youngsters involved in Croatia - and eligible for the Youth Cup - to quickly show what they've learned. For Wilkinson, it's a chance to show they can react to a different kind of pressure from the stands.
"It's a fantastic opportunity for our players to showcase their talent in front of the City fans. Hopefully we'll get a decent crowd in terms of numbers to support the boys," he said.
"There's no doubt about it, if you can get a home crowd that's partisan it gives them an extra boost. Fingers crossed we'll get that on Tuesday, and obviously the boys are very familiar with playing in this environment, this stadium, on that pitch. If we can flip the home advantage round it would be great. We're happy to take on anyone here. We enjoy playing here. To have our own fans here will give us another 10 per cent.
"Playing under the pressures of your home fans in terms of expectation, but also the backing. Going away, you won't get a better development opportunity than that [Split], or Leeds away last year got really good numbers and was quite hostile. Trying to get a mixture of everything to prepare them as best you can for the potential opportunities they will get at first team level."
City host Oxford in the Youth Cup quarter-final, knowing victory would set up an exciting away clash at Arsenal, before the winner would book a final against West Ham or Southampton, where home advantage is already assured.
"There can't be any thoughts of Arsenal," Wilkinson insisted. "Oxford have done brilliantly so far in this competition. They were comfortable winners against Cardiff, they were excellent against Leeds. They deserve to be where they are, we've got a really tough game ahead on Tuesday. But the potential to play away at Arsenal in a semi-final is a mouth-watering game for both sets of players and coaching staff. We can't think about that until we get the win on Tuesday."
With City hoping for a bumper Blues crowd at the Academy Stadium to cheer on the next generation of talent coming through the system, Wilkinson promised an under-18s outfit who aim to play exactly like the first team and every other side at the club. The coaches, though, view the Youth Cup as a chance to see which players react best under pressure.
Wilkinson said: "For us, seeing the players in those moments is really important. We need that challenge in our games programme to see what they're like under pressure and if they're ready to take the next step in their career, whether that's under-21s, a loan, first team football, whatever.
"The games where we find out the most about players are the games where they're under the most pressure against the best opposition to see whether they're as ready as we think they are. Or at the level we think they're at. We're really fortunate we've got so many quality players, we're quite successful in the league programme which means a lot of weekends we play well and can dominate games.
"But sometimes we don't learn as much about our players as we'd want to. To get far in the competition for us is a great learning opportunity to see if the players are, basically where they're at under the ultimate test. It's really important for us to try and do as well as we can."
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