For all the criticism of the National Curriculum from some well-known commentators and ex-players due to another early exit from the recent World Cup, its real test is about to begin.
Today the FFA announced the national squad for the AFC Under 16 Championships to be held in Malaysia in September. This squad is made up of boys born after January 1 2002 and that means they are the first generation of players to have played their entire football careers under the National Curriculum.
Of course, one tournament should not be used to assess the success or failure of the National Curriculum, but as our first true look into the players educated under it, it will certainly give us some indications if the goal of producing more technically gifted players is starting to show fruit.
Drawn into a group with Iraq, South Korea and Afghanistan, the tournament will provide Australia with some decent competition.
Australia have seen mixed results from this tournament in recent years. In the last AFC U16 Championship in 2016 we were the top seed of our group which featured Japan, Vietnam and Kyrgyzstan. Not only did we fail to win a match, the Joeys scored only two goals from their three group matches and finished bottom of their group.
We may possibly start to see some of these boys appearing in the A-League soon. John Roberts at Melbourne City, Louis D’Arrigo at Adelaide United, Mark Moric at Newcastle Jets, Dylan Pierias at Melbourne City and Rahmat Akbari at Brisbane are the ones to watch out for this season.
Before that in 2014 we were the top seed in our group, which featured Japan, China and Hong Kong. This time we won all three of our group matches to finish on top. We ultimately lost on penalties to eventual champions North Korea in the semi-final. This group featured Daniel Arzani, Jake Brimmer and Kosta Petratos.
This tournament also sees a new coach at the helm of the Joeys. Trevor Morgan has taken the reins and this will be his first hit out as the head coach for our Under 17s after Peter Cklamovski resigned in January this year. Morgan, who comes from the Wanderers and was assistant coach under Tony Popovic, is an excellent choice on paper. He seems to be relishing the role and has been actively assessing the boys across the country, holding training camps in both Sydney and Melbourne.
With Morgan running several selection camps, there seems to have been a much stronger emphasis on seeing the talent across the whole of the country and the selections seem to have indicated this. From a total of 13 NSW players selected in the U15 AFF Qualification tournament, only six have survived to be in the squad for Malaysia. The replacement players being drawn from all states.
Of the 23 players that Cklamovski took to Mongolia for the qualifiers that only nine have been selected in this squad. The biggest surprise was Tyson Savas from Sydney FC not being selected, as he has been this cohort’s captain in a majority of lead-up tournaments.
Tristan Hammond is the only internationally based player to be selected in the squad. The vast majority of the players have been drawn from A-League youth teams with only a sprinkling from non-A-league clubs. Melbourne City have provided the most with five players.
To date, many of the proponents of the National Curriculum have rightly pointed to the fact recent poor results from our youth and senior teams were an indication of the problems that we faced prior to the introduction of the National Curriculum and exactly the reason why change was needed. The expectation from this tournament is this squad will start to show a sharp uplift in technical skill and comfort on the ball.
Although results at youth level can be very inconsistent, a poor showing (and even more importantly disappointing performances) in this tournament will reflect negatively on the processes and systems that have been put into place as a part of the National Curriculum.
At this stage, we don’t know how widely the tournament will be televised; hopefully a few streams out of Malaysia will be made available for those interested.
Group matches
22nd September Australia v South Korea 10:45pm
25th September Australia v Iraq 6:30pm
28th September Australia v Afghanistan 6:30pm
Knockout stage from 30th September to 07th October.
The full squad is:
| Name | Club |
| Joshua Benson | Newcastle Jets, Australia |
| Timothy Boke | Belconnen United (ACT), Australia |
| Jordan Bos | Melbourne City FC, Australia |
| Noah Botic | Rockdale City Suns FC (NSW), Australia |
| Jordan Courtney-Perkins | Brisbane Roar FC, Australia |
| Luke Duzel | Melbourne City FC, Australia |
| Jayden Gorman | Perth Glory FC, Australia |
| Tristan Hammond | Sporting Lisbon, Portugal |
| Oliver Kalac | Western Sydney Wanderers FC, Australia |
| Birkan Kirdar | Melbourne Victory, Australia |
| Jaiden Kucharski | Sydney FC, Australia |
| Thomas Lambiris | Melbourne City FC, Australia |
| Adam Leombruno | FFSA NTC (SA), Australia |
| Adam Pavlesic | Sydney FC, Australia |
| Alex Popovic | Adelaide United, Australia |
| Joseph Roddy | Sydney FC, Australia |
| Lachlan Sepping | Marconi FC (NSW), Australia |
| Kerrin Stokes | Croydon Kings (SA), Australia |
| Ahmad Taleb | Melbourne City FC, Australia |
| Ryan Teague | Sydney FC, Australia |
| Joshua Varga | Melbourne City FC, Australia |
| Daniel Walsh | Perth Glory FC, Australia |
| Adam Zervas | Newcastle Jets FC, Australia |
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