Cambodia scores early. Anyone wanna argue tonight?

2 nil

HT: 1-2

Got back into the contest via a penalty.

losing to cambodia is a drop from the last few years since we normally flog them 5-0

Is this a weak team?

is there a link to the game?

Young Socceroos Head Coach Trevor Morgan will cast his eyes over 30 of Australia’s best young footballers in Canberra next week, as an Australian youth cohort assembles at the Australian Institute of Sport for a talent identification camp.

Trust Morgan to spot better players than the bunch out there tonight. 

Congratulations to Nectar, Lawrence and Garang who have all been selected to participate in an upcoming Australian U20's Talent ID Camp! 👏

#CCMFC #WontBackDown

Losing to Myanmar and Cambodia... bottom of the group. Is this the worst U16 team ever. This is embarassing 

For once I thought when we are going to compete and beat the likes of Japan at youth level again but now they can’t even beat likes of Cambodia and Myanmar at u16 level who they beat 4/5 nil a few years ago? Something is going wrong and it’s not a good sign going forward for Oz football.

How much preparation has gone into our youth squads over the last couple of years?  With competitions cancelled because of covid and with our borders closed are the squads a couple of years behind in development?

The average YEARLY wage in Cambodia is LESS than one players NPL fees. Let that sink in.

4-2 loss. But I'm sure some might think it harsh to question our approach to the match. Sad really. 

From a talent development perspective maybe we are looking at this the wrong way.

We are all saying 'what are we doing wrong' that we can't beat Myanmar and Cambodia?' Countries that are poor and have no real football pedigree.

Maybe we should be asking the opposite 'what are these small countries doing right that they can beat a rich, sporting country, Asian cup winners etc like Australia?'

The answer could be that the internet has made elite training much easier anywhere in the world. Kids are doing the same drills, and coaches are learning the same tactics as first world footballing nations pretty much at the same time.

Also it might mean that much of that other stuff we think that is important just isn't. Proper pitches, new boots, European trips for young academies etc....could be overrated. 

Our kids move ahead of theirs after the age of 17 and that probably has to do with money, opportunity and self belief. 

Just a thought.

Yep, I'm not losing sleep over these results. 
As far as i can tell this group of players didn't get to participate in the National Youth Championships in Coffs, so there is that to consider when selecting squads, yes there was a two week training camp in North Queensland, but that was what 40 players? compared to what is normally 200ish kids to pick from. 

This earliest Joeys stage is always the hardest to select because of the vast net considered to select the best youngsters in the country. And in a country as big as ours and the last two years of virtually nothing happening due to COVID related issues, is it really any surprise we are where we are?

And possibly we aren't giving enough credit to our opponents who as we have seen in the last five years have begun to improve drastically. As we continue to stagnate and decline.

We've known this issue has existed for the last five years, and yet nothing had been done virtually up until Ernie Merrick was appointed a couple of days ago. To hopefully put us on the right track.

You win. Not a great result regardless. 

If we have a 2nd division there is probably even at this age a dozen players with at least half a dozen games under their belt. That makes selection easier

Are you saying there are 15-16yo with 6 games NPL 1 experience? doubt it.

Never thought there was anything wrong with young people playing on a muddy dog track. Builds resilience. 

Don't need you tell me that. I know. Look back on this thread. 

I read an interview with Ross Aloisi (who’s now working in Japan) that young kids in Japan trained a lot more compared to those the same age in Straya.

At the end of day we are falling behind the Asian countries simply because of the level of investments put into the game over the years.

Internationally Japans adult results aren't much better than ours.

They haven’t achieved significant heights, but just watching their players is enough to know that their level of technical proficiency is better than ours. It hasn’t translated yet in a big way to results, but what they are building in their structure seems to be a foundation for the future.

When we look at our situation, we have a game devoid of investment, too much self interest and o ly now seriously looking at pushing for real changes. Ernie is one part of this, as is FA’s push for more investment in facilities, but unless stakeholders stop the usual games off the field, I can’t see on the field making big steps forward. 

I've heard at an A-league academy that the Japanese players do 100-200 more hours per year at youth than our players. 

Agree, there are not many secrets about player development any more, you can find information everywhere.

In the end, the results of the U16's is not a disaster if two, three or four players go on from here to a high level.
I would be very concerned if these results were at U23 level.

And it’s no wonder nor a surprise they are ahead of us.

The standards have to be better here.

Whats worse for us is that there's no more street football.

And I don't know what the kids do at lunchtime and recess nowadays.

Absolute joke of a result. We shipped 9 goals against AFF opposition.

So with India currently suspended from AFC competitions, our already-small U20 Asian Cup Qualifying group gets even smaller - we’re now travelling to Iraq to play 2 games only:

14 September vs Kuwait
18 September vs Iraq

It’s super dumb because most groups at the tournament contain 5 teams, however ours now contains only 3. Leaves very little room for error, and makes qualifying for a second-place spot almost impossible mathematically vs the other groups. 

These constant bans or withdrawals always stuff up the exciting 2nd place qualifying spots. Less so for us at A level but many other teams having wins against the bottom team deducted erase any hope. 

Football Australia has advised the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) that it will be withdrawing from the AFC U20 Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2022™ Qualifiers scheduled to be held in Basra, Iraq from 10 – 18 September.

The final decision was made after careful consideration based upon the current travel advice of the Australian Government.To ensure Australia’s best emerging footballers continue to be exposed to high level international competition, Football Australia is currently exploring the opportunity of the Young Socceroos competing in a four nations tournament in Spain during the September FIFA window.