No. 

According to MV Assistant Coach Carlos Perez Salvachua:
 https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/australian-kids-have-the-talent-but-don-t-have-enough-chances-to-play-20190426-p51hhf.html

Just out of curiosity, how many games were the old NSL juniors playing each year? 

It’s not just about the “top kids”. None of them are playing enough. Irrespective of age they’re lucky if they play 18-20 games a season. Some get an extra 8 games with school but that’s the minority. 

Forget about the games aswell, even physically they aren't anywhere near as prepared as people from academies throughout europe who have had high quality training and an appropriate diet for ages.

In Melbourne the NPL Youth are playing min 27 games most around 35 give or take.

i don’t think its the number of games that is the problem, the quality of the games and the quality of training is more of an issue.

Pablo already stated the kids here are on par with what he has seen in Europe upto U16. I’ve been saying the same from what I’ve seen first hand.

After that age is when we seem to fail, in terms of retention and improvement.

Fixing this is one of the essential steps that needs to be taken to keep up with the rest of the football world.  It is every bit as important as expanding the top tier, creating a second tier, deepening the elite state tiers and increasing participation in competitive football up to the level of serious footballing countries which means increasing the player base two to six times what it is now.

But the A-league is not a development league, so sorry kids have to come last or risk being like CCM and Roar!. 

Well we’re talking about kids aged 14, 15 and 16 so nothing to do with the A-League 

The Victory Academy kids train round the corner from my house so I watch them all the time if I’m taking the dog for a walk or have my kids having a kick in the park. They are there probably 10 months a year, 2 to 3 nights a week and everyday during school holidays. 
The training is certainly nothing revolutionary and physically intense. I don’t think they are getting much more than kids in any other top NPL youth set up. Other some nice training gear.

The context if the kids are on average comparable to the European kid well there better off going to Europe as the environment is better.

Im curious what the conversion rate would be for aussie kids trailing in europe and whether they get contracts.

I noticed in the last few years with the US soccer youth alot of there promising players are leaving the MLS for Europe when they turn 18 mainly Germany.

What makes you say that last couple of sentences? 

Posted the same article ah well!

Regardless it's interesting that the average Aussie youth player is similar to the ones overseas, it just shows how important the environment setting is for developing players the standard is set here is not good enough and needs an overhaul.

In Europe, the best players are training with the best players in their city, region, state and the rest of country and therefore their development is far likely to be faster, of course, it's difficult here due to the large geo. distance.

It's the case of best v best and in Europe and this where they have a big adv. of compared to the rest of the world.

It will be interesting with the youth structure plans with what Rob Sherman could do once the a-league goes independent and the eventual national 2nd division and how both will link with the overall ecosystem with the NPL and grassroots and in order creating a stronger environment comparable to the world's best standard.

I feel getting the structure right is very important going forward.

Football Pyramid anyone?

Yeh think thats a bit harsh. 

For a fact I know a typical Victory kid in u15 is training 4 times per week plus a game plus extra strength and conditioning, sports science etc. If they go to a sports college and are part of an -league academy some 15 year olds are training 7-8 times per Week (twice per day). 

The biggest issue is a mental one. We drop off after certain ages because we lack self belief. Always comparing ourselves to Europe is part of the problem and its usually Europeans (Aussie Euros) who do it. (There mums cooking is always better too).

If we go across and play in those leagues with limited self belief we perpetuate that. Tim Cahill, Kewell and Arzani think they can beat anyone, anywhere. 

In Germany where I'm living most local suburban junior teams from U5-U10 are training twice a week with one game on the weekend.
They also get to spend all their school holidays through out the year with family.
If a kid gets selected for a Talent squad they will also get an additional training day during the week by DFB A licensed trainers.

When a kid get's selected for an Academy in my experience they train 3 times a week.But could also be playing on a wednesday in a regional Trophy knockout competition.As well as a local or regional or state or national competition based on age group and how high up the pyramid the club has been promoted on the weekend.
 They could also possibly have an additional game on the 2nd weekend day with friendlies against other Academies.
Then there are tournaments.Some tournaments are against top teams from the region and others from other regions.

Then there are all the huge tournaments like the Cordial Cup where each European country has there own qualification process to qualify for the Cordial Cup.In the end you have all the biggest European youth teams playing against each other.
Noah's team just like week played in the U11 Hyundai Kids World Cup and had Everton in their group.There were teams from Turkey,Netherlands,Belgium,Portugal etc.
This weekend his team are at the Qualifying  rounds for the Cordial Cup.I think there are 48 top teams from the state of Hessen playing.Only the winning team will qualify for a spot at the Cordial Cup.
The week after they are playing at another International event with teams from all of Europes big clubs playing.
Then there is the winter period and everything moves indoors.Training moves indoors and games too.

Noah only gets 2 weeks holidays during the Summer vacation period and 2 weeks over Christmas.That's it.
The other 4 weeks of the Summer holidays are spent in pre season training camps or at the training grounds.
It's tough on parents and requires support and  a huge commitment on their part.

How different would it be for Australian kids if Australia was attached to a part of Europe.

Here's a link to the  download of the U11 Kids World Cup brochure https://www.oberrad05.de/
A link to the Cordial Cup webpage http://www.cordialcup.com/en/
It gives you an example of the types of competitions kids in Europe experience.

I think a big difference between here and Europe is the physical training Eg. a friend of mine is trialling in England with Prem teams atm having dominated at NPL level and he was told he needed to bulk up significantly and do a lot of gym work which is something I don’t think is emphasised enough in second tier academies. 

Reminds me of a story that I heard. An American youth team visited Sweden for a friendly and thrashed them as the Americans were physically faster and bigger. The American coach asked this team in question who is a stand out player for them, they pointed out some gangly tall kid and said it was him, they Americans couldn’t understand this. The guy was Ibrahimovic and the team was Malmo who have been responsible for developing a great deal of top players. The American team who had better athletes developed no one. I am cautious if we need to tell our kids only to bulk up, not saying it isn’t important at the very top but this is what football in the past was for us and it had limitations even then. 

MV use local coaches who have their licenses but majority of who have not had “elite” youth development experience and have come through community or NPL ranks, so what you see at MV training is what you will see at many clubs around then place. Add to that MV are rumoured to not pay particularly well and good coaches can earn more at regular NPL clubs so don’t want to join.

Also by cherry picking the best kids from the NPL (like MV did when they took the entire Vic Skilleroos squad a few years back) HAL academies are instantly competitive and almost any coach would do well, but this masks the fact that in reality they don’t actually do anything special compared to other NPL clubs and some academies, other than have nice tracksuits.

It's a tough topic as far as senior football goes.

There is not enough opportunities for talented young players to play top flight football as there aren't enough teams or games in the season but just gifting players a first team spot helps no one.

A-League expansion and the development of a national 2nd division will help encourage managers to use players to use younger players without forcing the issue. 

Players need to be learn how to fight for a spot so they develop the mentally as well as technically. We aren't going to help things for our best players who have a future on Europe by just letting them take the spot of better player for the sake of development. 

. 

You'd be pushing 30+ games tbf..  

25 NPL yoof games + 4 pre-season friendlies + finals if you make them + potentially any overseas tours + extras like school or academy training

I reckon it's a meme at this point saying wE dOn't pLaY eNuf gAmEs

If anything our youth are playing more games than men (18+) atm