'Melwood visit a perfect boost'

We head into today's reserve league clash with Sunderland buoyed by a trip to Melwood to train with members of the first-team squad.

We received the call late on Sunday night and were delighted to take up the invitation from Kenny Dalglish and his coaching staff. We enjoyed the run-out alongside players who weren't involved, or played very little part, in the superb win over Chelsea at the weekend.

There's no doubt it is a great experience for all of us - not just the players, but the coaches too. This is what everyone is fighting for in their respective careers.

Kenny, Steve Clarke, Kevin Keen and the rest of his staff treat us fantastically well and we are always welcome and made to feel at home.

I have said it before, but it really is a unique and fortunate situation to have a first-team manager who is so involved with the Academy and reserve team set-up. Kenny still comes down to Kirkby now and speaks to us all at least once a week. He obviously has this huge job here at Melwood but he still makes time for us which is fantastic.

The Melwood session was the perfect lift for our young reserve squad ahead of today's game, particularly as we had suffered a disappointment in the NextGen Series meeting with Sporting Lisbon last week.

Watch the video here »

We are happy we are through because it has been a very tough group. One team was above everyone else in terms of quality. Sporting Lisbon's youngsters have magnificent ability and the rest of the teams were left fighting each other for the runners-up berth.

I think Sporting are up there as one of the main contenders for the title. I have some experience working in a great youth system at Barcelona, and now here at Liverpool. If I look back at my 14 years in Barca's youth system and analyse all of my squads, I think I had just one that was better than Sporting. In fact, during 20 years I have only faced three teams with similar qualities.

When we spoke with the Portuguese team's staff while we were in Lisbon they told us that they believe it to be the best youth team in their history. That is a massive statement when you consider that they are famous for bringing through talent such as Luis Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo. What they have with that team is special.

In other groups, Barca will be one of the teams to beat too. I think they would have to drop four or five players who are currently involved with their second team's squad to beat Sporting. It would certainly make for an interesting match-up and those two are the favourites in my eyes.

Then there are the other teams who could make up the last eight, which includes us. We need to keep working hard in training to make sure we improve and can give it our best shot.

Watch Rodolfo discuss the main contenders for the NextGen Series title

Watch the video here »

For now, we can turn our attentions back to the domestic league and my sole focus is on Sunderland, who come here level on points at the top of the league.

We have played against them at U18 level over the past two years and I recall that they were both difficult matches. Many of those youngsters will form part of their reserve set-up now and they will also have players dropping from their first-team, so they will have a strong squad.

I think we had gained momentum in our domestic competition with three good results and the Sporting match may have disrupted our rhythm.

I hope the lads respond in the right way and learn what they have to from that loss. Hopefully they can bounce back as soon as possible - and there would be no better time to do that than against Sunderland today.

Rodolfo was speaking to Paul Hassall