Successful youth system key for future

Following the demise of the now defunct National Soccer League in 2004, football in Australia has experienced some unprecedented highs.

Two consecutive World Cup qualifications and an injection of fresh air with the establishment of a rejuvenated national competition, the A-League, has restored hope.

The inception of the revamped league brought much optimism and expectation following an influx in crowd numbers and an improvement in mainstream media space in its early years.

However, in recent times the A-League has suffered off the pitch.

Negative media publicity regarding the games direction, the demise of North Queensland Fury and an unstable financial environment amongst club owners is leaving many clubs and supporters feeling cynical about viability of the A-League throughout the long-term.

Gold Coast United Chief Executive, Clive Mensink, was left to defend his own club’s stance on the feasibility of the A-League.

Since the closure of the 2010/11 A-League season the club has seen a flurry of players leave the Sunshine Coast- Jason Culina (Newcastle Jets), Bruce Djite (Adelaide United), Shane Smeltz (rumoured to Perth Glory), Dino Dublic (Shaanxi Renhe Commercial Chanba in China), Anderson (released), Bas van den Brink (Busan l’Park in Korea) and Steve Pantelidis (Bintang Medan in Indonesia).

A profusion of important players departing, while only offering one-year contracts to existing players led to speculation that the club wouldn’t have a foreseeable future beyond the next couple of seasons.

However, Mensink had a differing view on the scenario and professed that the emergence of youth was a key contingent to the prosperity of the A-League and for Australian football to move towards a successful era.

“Despite the rumours and innuendo, not everyone is on a one-year contract at our club; just because we have decided that we need to be prudent and be responsible financially, that does not mean we don’t have faith in FFA or the A-League,” he said.

“There is little point in investing time and resources into creating a youth team that wins the competition two years running if we don’t allow those players to make the next step into the senior ranks.”

Mensink’s attitude must be applauded. Since the inauguration of Gold Coast United in 2009, this is one of the rare occasions where the club is leading by example. Constructive feedback and practicality has finally come into fruition for the club situated in south-east Queensland.

More A-League clubs should be inheriting this philosophy.

Obviously there needs to be some common sense and practicality used when applying youth towards the agenda. A mixture of youth and more seasoned players is a formula that has many benefits.

An over exaggeration of youth will leave players without the leadership skills and experience that is necessary when on the pitch. Younger players will learn their traits through training, to team meetings to game-time through their experienced counter-parts.

The philosophy envisaged by Gold Coast United is definitely ambitious; however the club is to be commended for having such a positive outlook on how our youth should be treated.

As mentioned, the Gold Coast youth team has won the National Youth League consecutively for two seasons, it only points to a bit of common sense that some of these players should be plying their trade in the senior landscape of Australian football.

The Australian youth system has seen an immense amount of change over the past few years.

Since the introduction of the A-League in 2005, the FFA introduced the National Youth League in 2008:

• Each A-League outfit would contain a youth roster comprising of a system where all youth players would need to be between the ages of 16-21 (must be in that age bracket as of January 1 in the year the Youth League commences).

• Four over-age players are also allowed to participate in the Youth League fixtures.

• Each youth player in the match-day squad would be required to receive a minimum of 30 minutes game time.

The latter rule was received with mixed emotions from the football fraternity. It’s great that youth players were able to receive guaranteed game-time to help nurture and develop their talents.

Although, having to guarantee 30 minutes isn’t a natural solution and can effectively alter the outcomes of tactics and results.

The youth system in the A-League is barely passable; conversely if we sight back to the NSL days the manner in which the clubs nurtured their youth protégées was seen as a much more productive system.

In the NSL, clubs could develop and trace the progression of their players all the way through their junior ranks. It was an effective system which allowed the national league clubs to develop their own future football stars and have an effective track record on how their juniors had progressed over the years.

A prime example is former Socceroo and AC Milan goalkeeper Zeljko Kalac. As a junior he played with Sydney United. He was raised through the ranks as a junior and developed his skills under the helm of the former NSL club.

At the early age of 16 he was rewarded and made his senior debut in the 1989-90 NSL season. Fairytales like this are not apparent in today’s football environment. The current system doesn’t allow for players to developed and nurtured by the National Australian clubs.

Nowadays, A-League clubs are mere pouches and consequently inherit the credit for the development and upbringing of young players.

These youth are purchased for the minimal bargaining agreement from their respective state league outfits. Consequently, these state league outfits inherit none of the accolades for their hard work and dedication in the player they helped produce.

If there were a system where A-League clubs could produce, track and nurture their own perspective talent through the junior ranks (U12’s and beyond) then I’m sure we will see an improvement in the quality of youth being produced.

It’s time for A-League clubs to invest their time, money and resources into formatting a junior system where talented players are constantly under the microscope of A-League officials.

Each A-League junior set-up could easily be installed with their local state federation and compete against the relevant junior teams.

Currently there are systems put in place by the FFV to have specific elite training squads like the VTC (Victorian Training Centre) who ply their trade in the Victorian Premier League and also in the U21’s of the same division.

These ideas are great for the development of the game within the state; the FFV should be praised for their innovative way of thinking.

However, for a truly efficient youth system, A-League clubs must attempt to take more responsibility in developing youth all the way down to their childhood years.

A junior set-up could comprise of an U12’s, U14’s, U16’s and U18’s system where the next stage would be the club’s youth team (U21’s which compete in the NYL).

In contrast to the utmost successful youth academies around the world, it is highly evident that a similar system is put into place.

Stars like Lionel Messi were a graduate from the renowned Barcelona youth system where he did his apprenticeship and graduated with flying colours.

We obviously need to put things into perspective, we don’t have anywhere near the amount of funding nor resources to compete with those benchmarks set amongst Europe. However, if a similar system is adopted then it will only reap benefits in the long-term future for the development and prosperity of the game.

It’s time for the A-League clubs to take more of an initiative and responsibility into how our kids are being taught their football apprenticeship.

There’s nothing wrong with scouting future talents from their local state league clubs and subsequently progressing their development, although an enhanced and more stringent youth set-up by the A-League clubs will have more positive outcomes for football within Australia.

Robbie Di Fabio is a writer for Goal Weekly (Courtesy of Goal Weekly)