This is the same formation used in Spain, Holland, Belgium and France at youth development.

Germany use 4-2-3-1, which is very similar.

The theory is that if players can  master this difficult formation, adapting to any others at senior level is easy compared to the inverse.

 However, I've only really familiar with the 4-5-1 as the 4-1-4-1 manifestation. I also know little  about how to coach  the 3-5-2, but am well versed in the 3-4-3.

We have a closed system. All of these players are selected from the COE or from professional clubs, its an incredibly shallow pool to select from. Most of our best young players will be in the NPL. 

Japan beat the same mob they drew with, they won 4-0 and it could have been more too.
I guess this shows we are falling behind Asia's elite let alone the world's elite given our u17s and u23s missing out completely also.

I wonder what we have to do....

Not sure I agree totally with that.

Problem is we have really poor competition at youth ages, it is all good implementing this difficult system but with the poor competition players don't actually master the formation. It therefore effects their development because we have young players unable to lead the line on their own against good competition, the 6 struggling with the intensity of the position and the defence isolated against quality players.

That is why i feel we should have the basics more or less the same such as passing it out, but we need to offer more protection to the defence and help our CF a bit more. 4-2-3-1 is what i'd use, it is similar but offers more flexibility/stability. 2 men in front of the defence with one player more advanced and one sitting, and the 10 at times like in Germany almost being a second striker to help out the man up front.

Start by setting up FULL TIME academy's across the country, training 2 times a day,5-6 days per week, 25-30 hours a week, with the best coaches possible, on the best pitches possible, playing in the best possible comps, against the best possible opposition.
Then invite the top 100 players (from these academy's) and 50 from NPL etc to national 3-4 day camps, 4-5 times prior to selection, have a panel of 5 selector, 3 internal and 2 external, and pick the best players. Train for 3-4 week prior to the comps and play.  

Open try-outs for all junior national teams? As in maybe each state has a tryout watched by the respective coaches of that age group's team. If the coach has at least seen first hand all the players available to him he has no excuse for not picking the best players that put their hand up. 

Perhaps clubs can nominate any player they feel is worthy of a shot to help slightly reduce numbers from all the overly-assertive parents who think their kid is the best in the country. One day having all our best kids playing in a second division, NPL system might negate the need for something like this. 

Of course, you may get inundated by players then. Do we have the resources to handle this? What do the likes of Vidmar, Rudan, Gombau, Talay do when there are no tournaments on. Are these full time positions? If so attending session across the country should be possible. If not then why not? Do other countries have FT youth national team coaches?
I admit to not knowing much on the administrative systems in place in our youth setup, or even really understanding how the teams are selected anyway. How do squads get picked? There seems so much bias, and there mostly seem to be players in NSW, the COE os state institutes, which suggests not much of a national perspective is given, despite the population sprawl of the country.  

I agree with this 1000%.

Open try outs would be ideal but i suspect given how huge australia geographically it would be costly, but right now its probably the necessary step needed to take us forward.
The current talent ID process and scouting is sub standard to say at least...

x2

How are players selected for the NTC programs ? can't believe Australia is still so far behind 

Jesus Christ, that's over the top. European academies would do half that :/

This is the shite we have to listen too , from those that have NFI
Pick the best 23 senior players from Aus ?
Pick the best u23 players from Aus
Please do , all the professors out there, you know what we need :)

No over the top at all when you combined ball work video analysis gym conditioning etc etc. Spoke to a coach from Santos told me that 6 days and 25 hours per week was std. City youth atm are at 15 plus hours. What would hal boys be doing?

Yep, my boy who plays at a club in Europe trains at least 20-25 hours per week!!!  

Interesting.

Which country?

Welcome to the forum, Hellya.

I would've thought one of the issues with City,  and other HAL youth teams , is they don't play enough matches. I thought there is only an 8 round regular HAL youth season according to Ange.

How many matches would your son play in a season, JDB03?

Kids at La Masia train 6-8 hours a week + a game :/ Maybe we should be focusing on quality over quantity. 25 hours a week + school seems like the quickest way to kill a kids enjoyment of the game.

All up 40 odd

Good.

This is pleasing.

Can you give a rough break down of those 40 games?

I was  concerned that you said only about 3-4 per youth team would go on to become pro footballers. When I saw City Youth  play Tasmania my viewing vantage  point was quite different from TV and my usual position at games - half way along the  pitch with an elevated view.

From my angle, I was really impressed with the technical quality of many City players. Technique comprising; first touch, handling speed, two sidedness, ball carrying, 1v1 attacking and defensive skills, and striking the ball. However, it might have looked different from the normal viewing vantage point.

From what I saw at a  low elevation, near a corner flag, many of the City Youth players looked technically superior to many current HAL players. 

I'm talking combination of all aspects of the game not just on the pitch kicking a ball. Junior npl teams that train 3 night a week and play a game do 6 -8 hours. Coach from Santos said there were 3000 kids trailing for one team of 20 u 15's so I'm sure if the kid couldn't cope with the training then it's next in line. We might not agree with that but that's how it is. 

27 npl games 10-12 practice matches 4-5 internal games then 8 nyl so really it's possibly more then 40.

Training for 20-25 hours and school...... I guess they have to put their heads down and work hard...it is not easy.......still enjoying every minute of it though otherwise why the hell would you put yourself through it.
They play probably roughly the same amount of games/practice matches as JDB03......not to mention stuff the boys do on their own time...it was defintely a step up from the amount of time training in Aus..

Thanks.

Plenty of games there.

I'd expect the NPL teams to be very physical and well organised defensively, but from what I've seen, short on technical quality. 

But it's a boarding school, they live and breathe football, when they aren't training they are at the best schools, and when they aren't have a very structured diet.

Yeah that would be fair to say with NPL2, NPL is quite a bit of a step up of chores. Youth team would struggle physically in NPL seniors.

Your right I just had a mates boy come back from OS trialling and found that the hardest part was keeping up with the training requirements. Good luck to your boy BTW.

The question should be here is why aren't we doing the same? Or is something holding us back in our approach to youth development training? 

Ill tell ya what we have a long way to go....

Correct why not. Guess money. City and Victory and im sure the other HAL clubs would be the closest. Still really not full time but the best we will get in AUS. Problem is that 9 clubs is not enough to give more kids the opportunity to be training at this level.

Ange said we lag behind Asia probably not even in the top 20 nations and he said it scary where we place ourselves in the world scale.
And by the same time we expect our youth teams to well when we are under invested in this field.
We need to invest more and place the mortar and bricks to build our pathways which we are too slow to do or not aware of doing it.