Under-18s goalkeeper and captain Luca Gunter is eager to make a winning start in this season’s FA Youth Cup when we host his former club Queens Park Rangers at Stevenage on Tuesday (7pm UK).
Our rearranged third round tie, postponed from last week due to the snow, will be televised live on SPURSPLAY and Luca has underlined the players’ desire to put on a good performance to kick-start what he hopes will be a lengthy run in the prestigious competition.
“It’s a massive game – probably one of the biggest games of our season so far,” said the 17-year-old stopper, who started all three of our FA Youth Cup matches last season and has been ever-present for the Under-18s in all competitions so far this term.
“The lads have been preparing really well, we’re ready for it and everyone is really looking forward to the match. It’s really important for us as a team to have a good run in this competition – it would be very disappointing if it was cut short, so we’re going to give everything to try to get as far as we can.”
Part of QPR’s Academy until joining us as a 12-year-old, Luca is relishing the prospect of playing against some of his old pals, but insists the only thing that matters on the night is victory for us.
“I was there when I was quite young so I don’t really know too much about how they’ll play, but I know a couple of their players – you’ve got to respect any team you play against, so we’re just looking forward to playing them and seeing what they’re about,” he said.
“With the snow and the cancellation of games, it does affect the preparations a little bit, but with the facilities we have here, nothing has really changed. We’ve been training on the Astroturf, obviously the cancellation of the Southampton game at the weekend was disappointing because we always want to play, but it gave us another session to prepare for this game, so we’ve been working hard as usual.
“A lot of the lads have played in big games already this season, especially in cup games that we’ve had to win, so it just builds experience really. We’ll try to give the best performance we can, hopefully be exciting, entertaining to watch and hopefully get the win.”
(official page)
