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SportLeague One & TwoSpartans delight with 'coup' as Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool agree to glamour pre-season...

Spartans delight with ‘coup’ as Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool agree to glamour pre-season friendly

BY ALAN TEMPLE – @CCP_Sport

SPARTANS chairman Craig Graham insists the Edinburgh amateurs have secured a ā€˜huge coupā€™ after announcing a glamour friendly against English giants Liverpool.

The Lowland League outfit will host an Anfield XI on July 15, with Jurgen Klopp expected to send the cream of his under-23 talent north. There is also the possibility of some senior players featuring depending on their full squadā€™s commitments.

Graham reckons the occasion will echo 2011, when a near-capacity crowd saw Spartans play out a 7-1 defeat against a Manchester United XI which included Darren Fletcher, Jesse Lingard and World Cup winner-in-waiting Paul Pogba.

(Pic: @spartansfc)

He said: ā€œItā€™s a huge coup for everyone who has helped to make it happen and will be a wonderful day for the staff, players, supporters and wider community here.

ā€œLooking back to when Manchester United visited, it got the excitement going among the youth clubs, the schools and brings the whole area together.

ā€œI would imagine their first-team will probably be on tour somewhere so the discussions will be similar to the ones we had with Manchester United and, on that occasion, a future World Cup winner [Pogba], Darren Fletcher and Tomas Kuszsak made the journey up.

ā€œLikewise, Liverpoolā€™s young players will be among the best in the world in their age group – internationals at their level – and will be better than ours, so it will be a fantastic experience.ā€

It is understood Liverpool and Scotland icon Kenny Dalglish, described as a ā€˜friend of Spartans’, played a part in organising the link-up and Graham believes the clash is a sign of the esteem with which Spartansā€™ endeavours are held in British football.

The fixture will serve as part of their academyā€™s 10-year anniversary celebrations.

Graham added: ā€œOur under-11s side actually went down to play a Liverpool team in a seven-a-side game at the start of December [2018] and we had really good feedback in terms of how the boys played, behaved and how the coaches carried themselves.

ā€œSo we got talking and discussions evolved. Given the the 10-year anniversary of the academy and the strong work we do in North Edinburgh, Liverpool decided it would be a good place for them to go.

ā€œItā€™s fantastic recognition for everyone who works so hard for Spartans; that even clubs like Liverpool say ā€˜look what these guys are doing, they are worth a visitā€™.ā€

Graham added: ā€œOur capacity is 3,500 and when we played Manchester United we got pretty close to that capacity. Weā€™ll certainly be looking at one of our biggest ever crowds when Liverpool come to town.ā€

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