Young Socceroos poised to pounce in Portugal

im talking purely as 17 year old who still has some way to grow into his adult body - adelaide have been load managing him, given his tender age and how taxing his explosiveness is to his own body at his current age he needs to push hard this pre season to the point where he should comfortably be able to run out 45 minutes (nobody is expecting him to run out 90 minutes, thats going to need at least a couple of full pre seasons) but half of that should be an achievable goal

yull has been dealing with stress fractures in his back - this is the second time hes had this type of injury in the last couple of years (he was out for months last time around) adelaide have been trying to manage it through rest and treatment, but its an extremely debillitating condition and is very awkward given the part of the body its effecting

another son of an ex adelaide united cult hero (brissy born though) rafa's in a slightly different boat then most, even though hes born in QLD, he left the country at 2 years old and his parents also arent australian citizens - so hes not a citizen and doesnt/cant hold an aussie passport currently thats not to say he couldnt play for australia, he just needs to qualify for citizenship

the talents always been in the country, i've always said up to around the 14-16 age; australia is on par with youth developement at the same age in europe - after that in australia you hit the bottleneck of not enough games, lack of money etc etc. then you have to try and get past the stigma of what young australian players are "worth" in europe, the selling club and the agent/s in particular need to do a better job in convincing clubs to part with there money. i like bos (still got a few things to work on) but if he was playing in europe, that figure would be double - especially as a soon to be 21 year old. adelaide were right to ask a seven figure fee from chelsea for johnny yull (it was a low 7 figure fee as well) and chelsea with their endless spending rejected it. i'd like to see the figures being branded about for irakundas move to europe be doubled, regardless of the deficiencies in his game currently - a player with that attacking skillset would transfer for 3-4 million if he was already in europe. i always use de ketelaere's recent move from brugge to ac milan as the example (yes hes a bit older 22) but brugge got 29 million pounds for him - there australian strikers who's metrics match up with him up to the age of 20 the current average of $400-$800k for a talented australian teenager is derisory a lot of the time

lots of players with potential in this age group, but as of right now its just potential - they all have a long way to go in becoming professional adult footballers. no questions that its a sizeable talent pool and alot of that is down to australia finally starting to target players who aren't born in the country and qualify through a parent or a grandparent. there's no shame in doing this, even much larger football countries are scoping the world for players that qualify (italy are searching for stikers like this, due to their shortage in producing them). remember some of this selected squad can line up for 2-3 countries, just because they're playing in an underage national team does not 'lock' them into that country. okon jn could just as easily represent belgium, mazzone has played for italy already and could line up for germany, valkanis has already played for greece, jovanovic was all set for serbia until they got slack with thier communication, durakovic could line up for montenegro if he wanted to, noa skoko has been playing for croatia. the main thing is making all the boys who qualify for australia welcome, if they keep on progressing in their club careers - it will be up to the player and their families to decide which national team fits best

not yet, if i can find a stream i'll post it closer to the tournament.

ultimately its all down to the players, they need to remember that playing football is a privilege and not a given due to a familiar surname and must be willing to sacrifice and everything in their powers to be successful. eg. make sure the diets right, stay away from outside distractions, learn the language of the country you're playing in ASAP

i think the key thing to take from the past 12 months, is the FA have realised they need to start providing more matches, camps and getting the relevant age groups together far more frequently. some of the wacky results the underage sides have had in recent times (especially against asian opposition) is due to not training/playing together more frequently - alot of the boys have no interaction with each other until the actual tournament. its very different to the asian sides who will plays lots of games, lots of camps and the players seem to know their teams mates and the coaches instructions like the back of their hands