Youth teams from Tottenham Hotspur and Bayer Leverkusen will be among the opposition for the Bermuda under-16 team on their planned tour of Europe next month.

Coach Kenny Thompson will take 21 young players on a trip taking in England, Belgium, Holland and Germany to give them a taste of life at some of Europe's top soccer clubs.

The tour party will fly out to London on August 19 and return to Bermuda on August 31 and the costs have been met by players' parents and fundraising events.

Whether the squad will be able to make the European trip and also play in the Caribbean Football Union Youth Tournament in Haiti, for which they qualified with handsome wins over the Caymans and the US Virgin Islands, remains in doubt.

The CFU put back the Haiti dates after election-related violence around the country and now the dates, August 23-25, clash with the European tour. Bermuda Football Association have requested a change of dates for the tournament and are awaiting a reply.

Thompson said he was preparing the team for both events and remained hopeful new dates could be arranged by the CFU to avoid the clash.

"All of this is leading up to Under-17 World Cup qualifiers,'' said Thompson.

"We are very forunate in having the chance to play in the Caribbean youth tournament, which has given us an idea of what the boys can do on the international stage. And with the tour we want to take it a stage further.'' London will be the first port of call for the youngsters, for a game against the youth team of Premier League Tottenham and then the youngsters will move on to the Netherlands, via Belgium.

They will take a training session with GBA, a satellite club of Ajax of Amsterdam and they will follow that by watching the Ajax first team play Fortuna Sittard at the Amsterdam Arena -- a game they will afterwards analyse.

They will also witness an Ajax training session and an under-17 tournament involving Inter Milan, Liverpool, Barcelona and Ajax, before going on to Germany to take on Leverkusen.

"We will see top first-team football matches and top youth football and it's an important tour for us, because we will get to analyse teams and individual players,'' said Thompson.

"It will give us a clear idea of what level we are at as we move towards the Under-17 World Cup qualification tournament.'' Thompson, who has frequently taken youngsters on soccer tours to Europe in recent years, said youngsters not among the 21 should not give up on their hopes of making his squad for the Youth World Cup.

"Every player born after January 1, 1984 is eligible and we are always on the lookout for talented young players,'' said Thompson. "Injuries and the like also provide openings to other players.

"Our preparation has been going quite well and the boys have been very committed. It's not easy for them to focus on training continuously when we get so few international matches. Nevertheless, we have to continue to train.''