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Opinion

Maybe a global pandemic is just what the A-League needed

24th January, 2021
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24th January, 2021
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Here’s a stat for you, Andrew Howe. Of the 54 goals scored in the A-League to date, 21 of them – or just over 38 per cent – have been slotted home by players aged 23 or younger.

Valentino Yuel may not be in that age bracket, but the 26-year-old continued the trend of exciting new talent getting on the scoresheet when he angled home the opener in Newcastle’s 2-1 win over Wellington Phoenix in Wollongong yesterday.

Yuel is the nascent A-League campaign’s joint top scorer alongside 21-year-old Perth youngster Carlo Armiento and his 22-year-old attacking teammate Nick D’Agostino.

And while the Jets were always going to break their losing streak – they’d played well enough without enjoying much luck until yesterday – the most exciting part of their gameplay has been the development of entertaining attackers like Yuel and Ramy Najjarine.

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Yuel still had plenty to do when he was released by an excellent ball on the break by Roy O’Donovan at WIN Stadium, but having outpaced 22-year-old Aussie defender Joshua Laws, the former Western United winger arrowed an unerring strike across the face of Stefan Marinovic’s goal and in off the post.

It was Yuel’s third goal in as many games, and the veteran of just 14 A-League appearances in total – mostly off the bench – wasn’t done yet.

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When Nikolai Topor-Stanley blocked Ulises Davila’s shot shortly after the halftime interval, it was Yuel who raced in from near the halfway line to shepherd the ball away from Phoenix midfielder Cam Devlin before cleverly finding Steven Ugarkovic with some neat footwork.

Ugarkovic’s perfectly weighted through ball found Roy O’Donovan and when Marinovic raced out into no-man’s-land, the Irish striker only had to stroke the ball around the Phoenix keeper and into an empty neat.

In doing so O’Donovan became just the 14th player in A-League history to chalk up 50 goals. For all the talk around whether visa players add the requisite value to the competition, you can hardly argue O’Donovan hasn’t proved his worth.

Roy O’Donovan of the Jets reacts

Roy O’Donovan (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

Players like O’Donovan, Davila and Perth’s talismanic Uruguayan striker Bruno Fornaroli add plenty to the competition, and the A-League would be vastly diminished by their absence.

But it’s interesting to note that of the current top ten goal scorers for the season – albeit from a shallow pool of games – only Yuel, Fornaroli and Melbourne Victory’s 29-year-old English import Callum McManaman are over the age of 23.

What that means is that for the first time in years young players are increasingly being relied upon to win games of football in the A-League. And it’s working.

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Mark Rudan might have warned us about putting too much pressure on youngsters this season, but it was his introduction of 20-year-old Dylan Pierias off the bench that changed the game in Western United’s favour in Saturday’s crazy 5-4 win over Perth in Geelong.

The hosts had just conceded back-to-back goals when Pierias headed home the equaliser to make it 2-2 with his first touch of the ball before the former Melbourne City youngster went one better with a superb volley from the excellent Tomoki Imai’s cross soon after.

As with on-loan Newcastle midfielder Najjarine, Pierias could hardly get a game at City. However, both have benefited from moving to rival clubs.

And the biggest impact of the weekend was enjoyed by the youngest player of all, with Adelaide’s 16-year-old wunderkind Mohamed Toure sliding home an inch-perfect finish in United’s 1-0 win over Melbourne Victory.

Toure and his older brother Al Hassan are rare talents, and without wishing to heap additional pressure on the pair, it’s not hard to see international call-ups for Mohamed in the future. But for now we should just enjoy his electrifying talent.

It’s been an outstanding start to the new campaign. And without making light of a global pandemic, maybe COVID-19 forcing coaches to look closer to home has been the circuit breaker the A-League needed.

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