National Youth League….Hooray !

Can’t help but let out a little cheer for the National Youth League which kicked off on the weekend. Australia has been missing this development stage now for a few years and it is fantastic to once again see a national comp for future Socceroos and A-League players.

Of course this first year is going to be pretty low key and I am not sure what the crowds are going to be like but the point is that we will now have year round competition for our up and coming youth. It is generally agreed by most football people that the more games you can get into the youth players between the ages of 16 – 19 they better they will turn out.

Hopefully over time, we will see more coverage of the Youth League. I don’t think a highlights package is out of the question and in the long term maybe even full coverage of games could eventuality develop (if we ever get the Fox Sports Football Channel).

I am a huge supporter of the format. A under 21 competition that allows a smattering of overage players is much better than a reserves format as it forces the clubs to develop their youngsters rather than just using the league to get game time into their unused squad members. There is one aspect however that has left me scratching my head.

The minimum age for the league is that all players must be 16 years of age on the 01st of January of the year that competition starts in (ie All players this year must have turned 16 by 01/01/2008. This seems a little silly for a couple of reasons.

Firstly we have our Joey’s team about to compete in the AFC Under 16 championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (they just defeated the Uzbekistan Team 3 – 0 in a friendly). There are a several players in this team that I am sure could benefit from inclusion into the Youth League. It would seem that a more logical way of determining age would be to just make 16 years of age the minimum age and allow clubs to sign these younger players as have their birthdays.

Secondly we have the absurd situation where Newcastle has signed Ben Kantarovski to the senior squad but he would have been ineligible to sign for the Youth Team (as he turned 16 on the 20th of January this year). It may even be the case where the age rules may make him ineligible to play in the youth league even though he has already started two matches for the senior team.

But overall this is great news for the sport and I would encourage all football fans to get along to a game or two and catch some of the future stars of Australia. Players like Tommy Oar (Queensland), Matthew Theodore (Melbourne), Alex Sunasky (Adelaide), Jason Naidovski (Newcastle) and Kofi Danning (Sydney) are just some of the youngsters that are set to light up the League this year.

Hopefully with all teams focusing on attacking free flowing football we should get some cracking games.

I won’t be able to get along to watch the Victory Youth for the first time until their home game against Sydney late in October but already I am looking forward to the match. Check out the Fixture here

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Missing : Fox Football Channel

After thoroughly enjoying the AFC Champions league match between Adelaide and Kashima on Wednesday it got me thinking, where is my “FoxSports Football” channel.

Late last year a lot of rumours were circulating that FoxSports was set to launch a dedicated Football channel. The channel was rumoured to have a much more expanded coverage of Football across the globe including :

1. Expanded Premier League Action
2. More English Football League Matches
3. More Asian Champions League matches
4. J-League Matches
5. Additional Magazine Shows
6. Asian Youth Championships

It was a rumour that had many football lovers salivating at the thought of so much football. There was even talk that Fox Sports may have sponsored a FA style knockout cup.

When Fox Sports rebadged their local Football show “Fox Sports FC, the first thought of many was that this was the first step towards the new dedicated channel but no further word was forthcoming.

The J-league coverage is especially interesting. The more A-league sides play against J-league clubs, the more I am interested in seeing more of this competition. I can see a very healthy rivalry developing between the two leagues over the next 5-10 years and as we have already seen with the crowds at the ACL home matches the Japanese clubs are popular.

With Australian’s now likely to be heading to the J-league under their new Asian Foreign player rule, interest in the league will continue to grow.

So come on Fox Sports ! Where is my Football Channel !

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Bagging A Set Of Antlers

Well what a night for Adelaide and Australian Football as a whole. Adelaide United turned in an excellent performance to send Kashima out of the AFC Champions League and put themselves through to the final four.

Aurelio Vidmar will be feeling justified for his strategy of resting a majority of his players in last week’s A-League game against Sydney. He has taken some criticism from that move but last night showed he was 100% correct to do so.

I must say I was extremely surprised by the Adelaide United tactics last night. I was fully expecting them to sit back and absorb the Kashima pressure and try for a goal on counter. But Vidmar should be congratulated for the attacking display that Adelaide put on. In front of a full house Adelaide played some of the best football we have seen from them in two years.

Some of the performances from the Adelaide players were heads and tails above anything we have seen from them in the A-league. Cassio was a fantastic running down the left wing last night, tracking back quickly in defence and deadly in attack. Dodd really should have had an early goal from a Cassio cross but missed the ball completely.

Speaking of Dodd, a move to Japan might be the best thing ever for him. The less physical Japanese suit him to a tee and his ability to force the ball through and then run on using his strength and speed was there to see last night, he must have beaten his defender at least half a dozen times last night.

Eugene Galekovic was splendid in goals last night, doing everything right. His positioning was spot on and the two reflex saves that he made in the first half ensured the pressure stayed on the Antlers.

But the player that stood out was one that hasn’t had a lot of media attention this year. Scott Jamieson was simply outstanding last night, this 19 year old showed signs we may have finally identified a left full back who could eventually step into the Scott Chipperfield shoes. He has a long way to go but he showed signs last night of what a great player he could become.

In is true the final 15 mins were extremely shaky by the reds but you could see that several players were just about out on their feet and they should be forgiven as they had taken it to Kashima and had put everything into the first 75min.

And the reward for Adelaide is a semi-final place, up against the Zico coached FC Bunyodkor. The legendary Brazilian will take over the coaching duties at Bunyodkor as current manager Mirdjalal Kasimov is about to become the manager of the Uzbekistan national team. Bunyodkor will be a tough nut to crack as they have several national players and Brazilian great Rivaldo.

I am sure Adelaide will get another sell out crowd on 08 October when the Uzbekistan team come to team, lets hope the reds can repeat the performance they put on last night.

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Here Comes The Japanese Raiders

Until now Japan has not exactly been a common destination for Australia Footballers. Currently only one Australian is listed on a J-League team (Eddy Bosnar at JEF United ) while a further two (Mark Rudan and Ufuk Talay) are plying their trade at second division team Avispa Fukuoka.

This is all about to change however with news last week that the J-league has allocated a fourth foreign visa place on their squads for next year to Asian only players.

This is an excellent move by the J-League and one that the A-League should seriously consider following. Arguably the best national league in the Asian Confederation this move by the J-League should help strengthen its exposure in the Asian marketplace. Up til now most of the foreign players have come from Europe and South America (similar to the A-league). This has lifted the standard of play but hasn’t brought in the international viewers.

With the clubs looking to fill these spots we can expect an influx of 33 Asian players into J-league teams (Division 1 and 2). It would be reasonable to expect that vast majority of these players to come from South Korea, China and Australia as these countries will have players of decent standard for a reasonable cost. A splattering of Middle East players could be expected as well but majority of players from these countries may demand wages beyond what J-League Clubs would be willing to pay.

So it is not unreasonable to expect 5-10 current A-League players making the move to the J-League next year. These will most likely be experienced players who are doing well in the A-League but who are not considered Marquee. Joel Griffiths, Michael Thwaite and Alex Brosque would just be a few of the players the Japanese would be looking at wooing over.

There is little the FFA can do to stop this exodus initially as the J-league operates on much larger budgets than we do (18 of the top 20 clubs by revenue in Asia are Japanese) and will have more money to tempt players there. The best thing for the FFA to do is continue to grow the competition here in Australia and abroad. With this in mind the FFA should follow the Japanese lead and change one of their 4 Visa player spots to be an Asian only allocation. We, like Japan, need to start building our brand into the Foreign Markets of China, India, South Korea and Indonesia.

Jess Fink has also made this the theme of his blog yesterday and I totally concur with him. There still seems to be a perception that we are the leading Asian Country. Truth be told we are nowhere near the standard of the J-league at this time but if we are ever going to challenge them we need to take steps now not wait for another 10 years.

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