Producing football talent has never been a problem for Australia, but keeping those youngsters in the game is more of a challenge. For every Lucas Neill and Harry Kewell there are numerous untold stories of talented youngsters whose dreams go unfulfilled having left Australia as teenagers.
Failure makes many return home disillusioned, walking away from a sport that once dominated their formative years.
Sydney FC youth coach Steve O’Connor worked with most of the current Socceroos squad in a former role at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), and he believes the success of the new National Youth League (NYL) is a massive development for the game in Australia.
The NYL was set up last year and every team in the A-League, apart from Wellington, fields a team in the competition.
Clubs such as Sydney and Newcastle have been forced to turn to their youth teams this season as injuries decimated their squads, allowing teenagers such as Kofi Danning, Ben Kantarovski and Rhyan Grant to taste senior football much earlier than expected.
While most of the best young players will still head overseas, O’Connor said improving the infrastructure of clubs and coaches will have a positive long-term effect on the sport.
“The A-League is now a great pathway for players, but you have agents in their ears when they are 15, 16, 17 and trying to get them overseas when they are 18 and promising parents all sorts, and this has been a problem for us over the years,” said O’Connor, who spent almost 12 years as the head coach at the AIS.
“You are not going to get any favours over there, the kids will be a long way from their families and it’s whether they are emotionally tough enough to survive in the professional world out there.
“Some like Lucas and Harry have done it, but many more don’t.”
The enhanced media profile of the A-League, particularly through live TV coverage, has provided a domestic platform for players to make a name for themselves.
O’Connor admits while clubs are heading in the right direction with scouting and identifying young talent early, this needs to spread outside of the professional setups.
“There is no shortage of young kids wanting to play football, but you are getting situations like at one under-13 team in the NSW Premier League who had 90 kids turn up for trials,” he said.
“But they are probably looking for four or five players and the rest, who get left out, often filter down to park football where they are being coached by a well-meaning parent who is not experienced in the game.
“At 13 or 14 you can’t tell what a player will be like when they are 17 or 18 and who knows how many kids we are losing because they are missing out on the chance to play.
“We need to change that and have more teams so the talent can be showcased on a wider scale.
“This is where we need to work to keep improving the pathway so youngsters know what they have to do to be picked up by an A-League club’s academy, that is how it works in Europe.”
O’Connor has seen the likes of Mark Viduka, Mark Bresciano and Brett Emerton come through the AIS and said the fact the trio played in the old NSL before enjoying success overseas is no coincidence.
“I have said to some elite kids, if you want a trial, I will get you a trial anywhere you want,” he said.
“It is easy to set up a trial over there as the AIS has a lot of credence and my name was known, but the kids often have to pay their own air fares, accommodation and generally look after themselves.
“Alternatively agents can hawk them from club to club in the hope of getting a contract but it doesn’t always work out.
“What we are doing now is creating proper pathways where players don’t have to feel they need to go overseas so soon.
“If they can play two or three years in the A-League and learn about their game it leaves them in a much better position to go on and make a good living from it.
“It also improves the quality of players available for the national team and ultimately that has to be the long-term aim.”
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