Emerging Socceroos/Matilda's- Development League

[FootballSam]

Hi all.

Been a follower of the forum since it's inception and was a stalker on the old forum as well.

I've been a coach in the youth performance space for the last 10 years. In that time, it's become apparent that we need the best players in the country playing more often against each other. The Emerging championships are great, but are only a one off. Players may not be at 100%, may be out of form or might be having a growth spurt leading to less optimal performance.

With that in mind, I've created a mock U16 development league. The idea is that A-League/Representative sides around the country would play once a month in areas that are central to those respective teams. Teams would play twice in a game day meaning over a 5 month period, they would play 10 games against other high performance teams. Because it's only once a month, games in their state competitions can be reorganised for a mid-week catch up.

Teams would travel to the locations on the Saturday with the idea they have an evening training session at the location. Games happen on the Sunday, ensuring that players are fresh and aren't playing on the day they travel. States would handle travel costs, buses in most cases. Football Australia would handle field bookings and accommodation costs for players (group bookings to keep fees) down. States would handle Saturday breakfast, lunch and Sunday lunch, while FA would handle Saturday dinner and Sunday breakfast with accommodation.

Be interesting to see what people think. Would love to chat to Football Australia about it, but unfortunately trying to get anyone on the phone about Talent ID work is impossible. Here's 3 rounds to see what it looks like.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

Hi all.

Been a follower of the forum since it's inception and was a stalker on the old forum as well.

I've been a coach in the youth performance space for the last 10 years. In that time, it's become apparent that we need the best players in the country playing more often against each other. The Emerging championships are great, but are only a one off. Players may not be at 100%, may be out of form or might be having a growth spurt leading to less optimal performance.

With that in mind, I've created a mock U16 development league. The idea is that A-League/Representative sides around the country would play once a month in areas that are central to those respective teams. Teams would play twice in a game day meaning over a 5 month period, they would play 10 games against other high performance teams. Because it's only once a month, games in their state competitions can be reorganised for a mid-week catch up.

Teams would travel to the locations on the Saturday with the idea they have an evening training session at the location. Games happen on the Sunday, ensuring that players are fresh and aren't playing on the day they travel. States would handle travel costs, buses in most cases. Football Australia would handle field bookings and accommodation costs for players (group bookings to keep fees) down. States would handle Saturday breakfast, lunch and Sunday lunch, while FA would handle Saturday dinner and Sunday breakfast with accommodation.

Be interesting to see what people think. Would love to chat to Football Australia about it, but unfortunately trying to get anyone on the phone about Talent ID work is impossible. Here's 3 rounds to see what it looks like.View attachment 2274

Welcome to the madhouse

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

Welcome to the madhouse

Your best bet would be to speak to the APL about them implementiong a youth development league.. FA have designated a spot on the calendar for the Y league but so far no indication that the APL has the funds (or appetite) to make it work.

 

[FootballSam]

Feels like I've been here forever funnily enough Yes, the big focus at the moment seems to be on coach education in Football Australia world. There's nothing wrong with this and it's good coaches are getting educated. But I think we're at a stage now where it's becoming obvious our teenage high performance footballers need to be playing more against each other. 1) This helps build the pool in terms of talent identification but 2) it will expose them more regularly to stronger opposition and hopefully build better footballers.

 

[HappyGuus]

I was looking at the Belarusian women's league the other day, don't ask me why haha. But they include their union national team in their league. Could that work here, if we have the junior Matildas playing A-League?

 

[FootballSam]

I was looking at the Belarusian women's league the other, don't ask me why haha. But they include their union national team in their league. Could that work here, if we have the junior Matildas playing A-League?

Noting the pushback that A-League teams get, I imagine the push back would be even harder against a national team. I think if you were to do that as well, it would be a fixed squad and therefore harder to bring players in and out of that team. I think what you'd be looking at instead is the resumption of the Football Australia COE.

 

[jas88]

what I find interesting is the amount of footballers in Brazil playing 60+ a games a year and still playing futsal/beach football over the break or between games. Just on a whole other level to us.

 

[grazorblade]

Hi all.

Been a follower of the forum since it's inception and was a stalker on the old forum as well.

I've been a coach in the youth performance space for the last 10 years. In that time, it's become apparent that we need the best players in the country playing more often against each other. The Emerging championships are great, but are only a one off. Players may not be at 100%, may be out of form or might be having a growth spurt leading to less optimal performance.

With that in mind, I've created a mock U16 development league. The idea is that A-League/Representative sides around the country would play once a month in areas that are central to those respective teams. Teams would play twice in a game day meaning over a 5 month period, they would play 10 games against other high performance teams. Because it's only once a month, games in their state competitions can be reorganised for a mid-week catch up.

Teams would travel to the locations on the Saturday with the idea they have an evening training session at the location. Games happen on the Sunday, ensuring that players are fresh and aren't playing on the day they travel. States would handle travel costs, buses in most cases. Football Australia would handle field bookings and accommodation costs for players (group bookings to keep fees) down. States would handle Saturday breakfast, lunch and Sunday lunch, while FA would handle Saturday dinner and Sunday breakfast with accommodation.

Be interesting to see what people think. Would love to chat to Football Australia about it, but unfortunately trying to get anyone on the phone about Talent ID work is impossible. Here's 3 rounds to see what it looks like.View attachment 2274

Welcome to the forum and thanks for coaching youth!

So ive heard that 15 to 20 is where our development falls off a cliff

Is this why you choose u16?

 

[grazorblade]

Your best bet would be to speak to the APL about them implementiong a youth development league.. FA have designated a spot on the calendar for the Y league but so far no indication that the APL has the funds (or appetite) to make it work.

The frustrating thing is that a full h and a y league probably pays for itself

 

[Barca4life]

Surprised we still have no national youth league, I think it will go a long way towards developing more talent especially players that are not quite ready for the a-league.

Ideally the national youth league would have Championship youth sides too as it can help them develop talent for the national stage as well, the bigger the pathway the more players and even coaches could develop.

Especially when there is no competitive football outside of the NPL youth season, it would make sense it was played during the October to January window.

There is also a gap potentially in the youth pathway given the FIFA u17 World Cup is on every year, so how does Australia prepare the u17 age for International football is going be important that needs to be discussed by the stakeholders.

 

[FootballSam]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for coaching youth!

So ive heard that 15 to 20 is where our development falls off a cliff

Is this why you choose u16?

So a couple of reasons.

1) Absolutely this is an age bracket where it’s been identified that development falls off. So more games against higher level opposition hopefully helps boost that.

2) U16s is an important year for U17 Joeys identification. So 6 months of consistent games generates loads of data and footage for NT youth coaches to watch. It also provides far more exposure for those states that don’t get as much exposure to NT coaches like QLD, SA and WA.

The costing for it is really not that bad IF the clubs/state feds and FA split costs like in my first cost. A lot of the cost could be covered by heavily advertising games in their respective regions, inviting local teams to watch and running a well organised canteen. Could easily make a few K in a day off it.

 

[grazorblade]

So a couple of reasons.

1) Absolutely this is an age bracket where it’s been identified that development falls off. So more games against higher level opposition hopefully helps boost that.

2) U16s is an important year for U17 Joeys identification. So 6 months of consistent games generates loads of data and footage for NT youth coaches to watch. It also provides far more exposure for those states that don’t get as much exposure to NT coaches like QLD, SA and WA.

The costing for it is really not that bad IF the clubs/state feds and FA split costs like in my first cost. A lot of the cost could be covered by heavily advertising games in their respective regions, inviting local teams to watch and running a well organised canteen. Could easily make a few K in a day off it.

do we know the costs? I imagine for just 10 games once a month it wouldn't be too bad

Do we know what causes the drop off.
I've heard the following 4

1) lots of people leaving the game, either for other codes or because they believe it is hard to make it (if they aren't in an a league academy they might think why bother)
2) lack of athletic development. Euro kids are getting regular football specific gym programs and training in the gym 4 times a week on top of a full time equivalent training schedule from the age of 16
3) lack of streaming and putting the best against the best (which yours aims to fix). Lots of lopsided scores where players aren't learning anything and the drop off between the best kids and next best is apparently huge. The best don't play the best enough
4) poor match readiness. Euro teams from 15 up are playing more games a year compared to Aussies, they also have a clear pathway to first team with u18s a national comp as well as usually a u20 on top of reserve teams often playing in lower divisions

 

[FootballSam]

do we know the costs? I imagine for just 10 games once a month it wouldn't be too bad

Do we know what causes the drop off.
I've heard the following 4

1) lots of people leaving the game, either for other codes or because they believe it is hard to make it (if they aren't in an a league academy they might think why bother)
2) lack of athletic development. Euro kids are getting regular football specific gym programs and training in the gym 4 times a week on top of a full time equivalent training schedule from the age of 16
3) lack of streaming and putting the best against the best (which yours aims to fix). Lots of lopsided scores where players aren't learning anything and the drop off between the best kids and next best is apparently huge. The best don't play the best enough
4) poor match readiness. Euro teams from 15 up are playing more games a year compared to Aussies, they also have a clear pathway to first team with u18s a national comp as well as usually a u20 on top of reserve teams often playing in lower divisions

I’m waiting to hear back from a group accomodation enquiry so I can put some rough costs together. Will let you know once I do.

In regard to the reason, I think match quality has a lot to do with it. Come u16/u17 most countries have high performance leagues, where top academies play each other week in week out.

So here in Australia our kids continue to play at the same level, while in South America, Asia and Europe the level jumps up as they now play the best in the country rather than best in their city. That naturally causes growth- tactically they need to think smarter, physically they’re playing at a higher intensity and they need to execute better technically.

For me it’s the barrier we really need to figure out because it’s a uniquely Australian problem. With our size how can we get our top u16s-u19s regularly playing games against each other.

Just looked and Japan also has an U18 premier league that their top clubs compete in.