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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