'Show the world how good you are'

2008: Kieran Trippier, Ben Mee, Daniel Sturridge.

2020: Cole Palmer, Tommy Doyle, Oscar Bobb.

The FA Youth Cup can showcase the best young talent in the country and can give the chance for commentators to shout: "Remember the name..."

Manchester City, facing Leeds in the final on Friday, are looking to win it for a fourth time - that or extending their tag of being the team to finish runners-up on the most occasions.

But those who have been there, and will be there, want the class of 2024 to live up to the moment.

Ben Mee, who captained the side in 2008, told BBC Radio Manchester: "It was the first time I got a feel of how it would be to be a professional footballer, how it would be in the first team, going to hotels."

Ben Wilkinson will coach the side at the Etihad Stadium.

"These opportunities don't come around too often," he said.

"What we're trying to do is give our players the best development games and trying to put them in an environment that mirrors the first team as much as we can."

Some 20,000 people are expected at the home of Manchester City.

"It's a very different feel to that of our training ground with a couple of hundred people there," Wilkinson added.

"It gives you that bit of hunger of: ‘I want this every week’," continued Mee.

And if they get it right they join the classes of 1986, 2008 and 2020.

Wilkinson said: "The message is that this is one of the first chances to show the world how good you are, especially in the world we live in now and the pressure on young players, so seeing how they stand up in that moment is a really interesting piece."

Mee agrees: "It's the experience that you can play in big games and perform.

"I was captain of the team and managed to score an equaliser in the final. Those are the moments you play football for.

"It gave me that hunger to go on and improve. It got us known to the first team as well a little bit. I went on a tour with the first team straight after that and then would train in and around them the next year.

"It brought us to the attention of the manager of the time. A little bit acknowledgement, a little bit of coverage, my profile rose a little bit more."

Manchester City's academy is the strongest it's ever been according to Wilkinson who uses various markers. The first is those breaking into the City first team - the likes of Phil Foden and Rico Lewis.

The second marker goes further afield.

"How many players have we got playing in the top five leagues?" Wilkinson asked noting that in this day and age it's unlikely six or seven academy graduates will play together in the City first team.

"I was watching Jeremy Frimpong in the Europa League for Leverkusen. He spent his whole journey here and that's the best way of assessing how we're getting on."