NTC wrap-up Institute Challenge
07.12.2012
Victorians finish with two wins, one draw and three losses.

The Victorian NTC team wrapped up its involvement in Football Federation Australia’s National Institute Challenge yesterday with a win and a loss to finish the tournament with a reasonable set of results.

It was a difficult week for the young Victorian players who were competing against opposition born up to two years older at times, with the majority of member federations bringing their 1996 born players to Canberra.

The decision was made for Victoria to bring their 1997 players so that they didn’t miss out on a vital part of their development as Technical Director Sean Douglas explained earlier in the week.

The team worked hard in all games and were never outclassed with their technical and tactical aspects of play adequate. The age gap simply meant the physical advantages of the opposition was too much to handle.

Players involved in the tournament are now going through meetings with coaches to receive evaluation and feedback before a six week break.

Upon returning, the players will then begin trials for the Senior NTC squad in February.

Young NTC team overcoming obstacles
05.12.2012
Half way through the National Institute Challenge, Victoria has had to adjust to older opposition.


A youthful Victorian NTC team is holding its own against more senior opponents in Football Federation Australia’s National Institute Challenge which is currently at the half way mark in Canberra.

Having chosen to send 1997 born players rather than the 1995-1996 born players sent by other member federations, Football Federation Victoria’s boys have found it tough to play against their older opponents but are identifying weaknesses and improving match to match.

FFV Technical Director Sean Douglas explained the reason why younger players were selected for Canberra.

“Football Federation Australia originally wanted to observe the 1996 born players one more time with the expectation of being in next year’s U17 World Cup but in the end Australia didn’t qualify,” he said.

“The 1996 players got their chance in this tournament last year and the 1998 players will do so next year, so if we didn’t choose a 1997 born team this time around then the entire age group would have missed out on a critical part of their development.”

Despite reasonable results with two wins, two losses and a draw at the half way mark of the competition, there are a number of areas to work on in terms of the performance – which is what matters most at this level.

“In the early matches we were under a lot of pressure due to our age and instinctively fell back into a deep defensive block,” explained Douglas.

“While being able to stop goals in that position, when we won the ball we were so deep that the opposition were instantly pressuring us and we were unable to keep possession or play out.”

With that in mind, the team’s instructions were to press higher up the pitch and avoiding dropping deep; something the team did well in their most recent match.

“With our higher pressing we were able to win the ball in midfield, and suddenly we had passing options in all directions,” said Douglas.

“This allowed the team to be close enough to score goals directly from winning the ball, or if that wasn’t on, we could secure possession and carry-on from there.”

With identification of team weaknesses constantly being rectified, hopes are high that increased performance levels will follow and that even Victorian players will get maximum development from this experience.

That is some serious glossing over there Arthur. Vic not only played a lot of long ball but they came last in the technical points table with a grand total of 12.5 points. Most teams had a mix of 15 and 16 year olds while the 15 year olds were predominant. Some teams even had 14 year olds. With the minimum time rule for all teams (200 minutes) I can assure you that every team have had a mix of 15 and 16 year olds on the park in all games. BTW only 1 player from Vic selected for the Allstars game and that was the goalkeeper.

Spathi is their a link to the technical points table?

No but i can post it for you

SA-----------36
ACTAS--------31
NNSW--------31
QAS----------30
NSW----------29
FW-----------26
FFT----------24
NT-----------17
FFV----------12.5

After 8 games

To be honest I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed at our results Spathi.

I am no fan of the NTC program in Melbourne but it is what it is.

Many in Melbourne will blame the FFV Technical Director, the NTC Coach, the FFV for providing inadequate training facilities and the selection process wether it be how, who and those that rejected the offer.

I just reckon its false development taking the best 15yo olds out of the general playing pool, matching them against boys up to 3 years their senior in U18 Competition.

Nabbout and Leckie where not part of these type of programs their must be something wrong.

Thanks Spathi! Can you post the points table as well? Much appreciated.

Edited by slee45: 8/12/2012 08:41:36 PM

I tend to disagree with you on that point Arthur.
Here in the ACT the ACTAS boys played against the reserve grade squads of the local premier league clubs. The competition with ACTAS involved would have created a bye so they played on a Tuesday night so as not to create a bye. The clubs used this to there advantage and brought first graders in so as they could take the points for the club championship and reserve grade advancement. Remember these boys were 14, 15, 16 and there were 3, 17 year olds. As it happened the boys acquitted themselves quite well finishing sixth in a competition of 9 and they trained on a cow paddock. In fact the eventual grad final winners beat them 6-5. So my point is that its not where they train its who is training them.

5 weeks out from NTC the ACTAS coach resigned leaving the preparation of the squad in tatters. There were trials held due to the fact that the 3, 17 year olds were not permitted to participate in the NTC. That took 2 weeks. They played 3 three friendly games after that and the last week and a half the squad was used for B license, A license and state coaching conference courses. So as you can see it was not the ideal prep a squad would need leading into a big tournament like the NTC.

I would suggest that the coaching initiatives implemented by FFV and the NTC coach were not up to the standard required for an elite group of players from Victoria.

I am not a fan of 2 nights a week training with a club that have players of a level less than that required to reach a higher level of play. I am in favour of an elite squad training 4 or 5 nights a week with a game included, that has high intensity and where players push each other to reach a higher level at each and every session.

Vics 3 wins 1 draw and 4 losses, only finishing above WA and NT, got a hell of a long way to go if you ask me, tell me why would the coach take younger kids when Vics aren't even a strong state??? I can give him some advice, at least grab an older centre back, one or two older midfielders and a striker and that would sort out a couple of more wins, build the younger ones around these older guys! Why are we always a step behind the other states!

I think Vic did not do too bad considering they played older opponents...Most teams had 96 born players and a few 97. WA had twelve 96 born players & only six 97 and Vic won 1-0. But I guess maybe you right, if they had at least 4 quality 96 born players in the team, it would have been a better result. The younger kids who play older opponents do tend to at times boot the long ball out of frustration, as physically they can't match the stronger kids. I would also suggest that kids at these competitions should play in their own age groups at National level. Unless their is the odd one or 2 gifted players than can play a year up. Kids develop at different ages.. and the younger ones can be overlooked sometimes because they can't match it against older kids.

I tend to disagree with you on that point Arthur.
Here in the ACT the ACTAS boys played against the reserve grade squads of the local premier league clubs. The competition with ACTAS involved would have created a bye so they played on a Tuesday night so as not to create a bye. The clubs used this to there advantage and brought first graders in so as they could take the points for the club championship and reserve grade advancement. Remember these boys were 14, 15, 16 and there were 3, 17 year olds. As it happened the boys acquitted themselves quite well finishing sixth in a competition of 9 and they trained on a cow paddock. In fact the eventual grad final winners beat them 6-5. So my point is that its not where they train its who is training them.

5 weeks out from NTC the ACTAS coach resigned leaving the preparation of the squad in tatters. There were trials held due to the fact that the 3, 17 year olds were not permitted to participate in the NTC. That took 2 weeks. They played 3 three friendly games after that and the last week and a half the squad was used for B license, A license and state coaching conference courses. So as you can see it was not the ideal prep a squad would need leading into a big tournament like the NTC.

I would suggest that the coaching initiatives implemented by FFV and the NTC coach were not up to the standard required for an elite group of players from Victoria.

I am not a fan of 2 nights a week training with a club that have players of a level less than that required to reach a higher level of play. I am in favour of an elite squad training 4 or 5 nights a week with a game included, that has high intensity and where players push each other to reach a higher level at each and every session.

“Elite” U14 Programs Stifle Development

Why can't we get off of this plateau? I believe it is because we ignore the forest for the trees. European and English professional clubs increasingly have signed more and more foreign Latin players, in efforts to create better and better leagues. Then, they state that they must improve the level of play of the English and European youth players. They ignore the natural environment in which players in Brazil and other Latin countries developed, and instead have created an adult-prescribed regimen for a select few young players. Their solution is that same as ours has been -- to find "elite" players at younger and younger ages and get them into the "right" environments. They and we look at the harsh realities of what it takes to be a "pro", what it takes to play at the highest international levels, and then we try to reverse engineer the environment for the few players we think will have a chance to make it.
In our reverse engineering, we have focused on peripheral issues, but omittedmany of the intangible ingredients that go into making world class players. First, we know that it takes 10 or more years for a player to develop, but we have not fully considered what creates player development. We have taken our adult view of the game, and the lessons our senior players have learned in the international arena, and have tried to recreate the pro environment for our younger players. Our attempts to date have been to create quality structured environments for our "elite players,” where they train "purposefully” and play in "meaningful games.” One of the most glaring problems is that we are basing our definitions of “purposeful’ and “meaningful” on the precocious attributes of players who are immature in many other areas of development. Therefore, our training targets those areas where they alreadyexcel.
Because, most often, the only reason they excel at these ages is a maturity issue, the only way for them to compete in more challenging environments is to rely on those areas where they are more mature. We compound the problem because we label the players we select as "serious players,” as opposed to "recreational players.” This has become a case of circular reasoning, and now we seek to find the “serious” players for travel play at younger and younger ages. The result, though unintended, is that we have created an environment where, indeed, results are paramount because our focus is exclusively on how to become more efficient players.
This is why it is counterproductive to have a U14 National Team and U14 Academy programs. By nature, these programs require selecting “elite” players. This means that the focus for local and regional U10 through U13 programs who want to “succeed” will be to identify and prepare "pre-Academy" players.

Good finish by NNSW then credit to the coach as must have been tough after a slow start.

From digging at halftime in socceroos match, which is similar by the way as we look much bigger faster stronger than chinese taipai, it seems as though these states had older kids

NNSW - 7 older kids
WA - 12 older kids
ACT - 7 older kids
TAS - 7 or 8 older kids and maybe even a couple older still, surely not allowed??
VICS - 0

Sorry couldn't find anything on NSW QLD SA NT or any others that I may have missed, someone else might know

Out of curiosity, how did you find these? I searched a while ago for squad lists but couldn't find those, let alone player ages.

I'm pretty sure TAS and NT have provisions to include older players to ensure as level a playing field as possible (due to small populations).

And yes, great finish for NNSW. Although they were 1 and 4 at one stage, of the 4 losses they were the better team in 3 of them. The coach was awarded all-star assistant for helping turn it around (results wise) and for the way they played the whole way through.

Good point fair call, if states like NT and TAS didn't bring older kids then they would probably lose most of their matches

Exhibition match:

All Stars 2-0 NSWIS.

All Star Team Breakdown:

NSW - 7
SA - 5
ACT - 4
NNSW - 4
QAS - 2
VIC - 1