This is my most ambitious post ever. My Principia. My Origin of Species. My Mona Lisa.

I started keeping tabs of young potential future Socceroos in the notes of my phone. Then added images to be able to picture them better when reading The Aussies Abroad thread or A-League results. It became too good a resource not to screenshot and share.

Below, Australia's top 51 youth born in 1997 or younger (So max age 21).
Let me know if I missed anyone obvious.

Rankings based on:
- Achievement (So naturally favours older players and players getting game time)
- Hype (here and in the media)
- Managers/pundits assessments
- My own bias/reading of the stats



Goalkeepers:
Only one name in this age group thrown around at this stage.


Defence:
Looking strong in the fullback spots. We’re living in Australia's Leftback golden generation.
Centre back is looking thin, but it is a late bloomers position.


Central Midfield:
Some tough competition coming through for our senior National teams already strong midfield.


Attacking Midfield/Wingers:
An endless supply of high potential technically skilled attacking midfielders coming through. Much needed in our senior national team.
Rank 2-9 were hard to split as they’re all equally full of hype and potential.


Strikers:
This section felt like scraping the bottom of the barrel from the start. Just like the previous generation, we have a lack of strikers getting game time or scoring goals.
Few of these players have done anything aside from threatening to break out. But all we need is one or two.

Bloody hell.  Good job.

I second this. ☺

Plenty of good goalies around beyond glover.

That's for sure. Glover struggled to get back his starting spot at the Mariners. Should not be on the list.

Great post. Let’s hope we hear more and more from these guys.

Hopefully most kick on and can become decent in senior football

Im too lazy, but which A-League team has the most players on this list (including loaned players) currently in their squad?

this is great

send it to arnie immediately

Good post, I wouldn't mind seeing another one with potential  npl/aleauge players who are coming up or yet to get decent game time. 

Or just NPL in general. 

Fucking hell post of the year. This shall forever be bumped to keep it close for constant reference. Didn't know about Pennington. So there are 50. If 10 get good European careers that's probably the success rate, right?

Great job, I’d love to see this post brought back to life in a couple of years to see how many of the lads have kicked on.

Stamatelopoulos at Adelaide was interesting when he played a bit last season. So many potential gems in this list, Lets nurture them well.

Nice efforts - well done 👏

Great post, thanks for the effort mate!

Melbourne City lead the count here with 5? Just doing a rough count by eyeballing the list.

This list has made me go blank on who we have pre 1997. Mabil, Hrustic, Susnjar, Elder, Garuccio, Tongyik, Kamau. Lots to look forward to. The dark Holger days should never be repeated.

Fantastic post!

There should be a thread for the most promising young players here and overseas so this perfect.

Some of the opinions from some players a slightly disagree with but that’s a matter of opinion anyway.

But well done!

Biased list

Great job. Well done.

Lets turn this list into a predictor and see how far off we are in the talent scout department.
1. Big 5 Europe
2. Mid-tier Europe
3. A-League 1st Team
4. European Obscurity
5. A-League Squaddie/Obscurity
6. NPL
7. Selling Real Estate

http://forum.insidesport.com.au/2333659/NPL-Players-Thread

Brilliant post! I'd chuck Maynard-Brewer in there for GK '99 born and was on bench for Charlton in their first game of the season

The reserve keeper from Adelaide deserves to be on the list,
Love your work , well thought out and clear , easy to read.

Great post ...actually about football !

Awesome work, you should've made it into your own blog though so 442 don't get the free content :)

Again, great job. 

Thanks a lot guys. I just had fun making it.


Your turn bro.


Cheers and I hope so. Adding 10 of quality to the current mid/younger seniors would make us dangerous (as long as one of them is a striker).


+ Ikonimidis and Borello.


Thanks. Happy to hear differing opinions on players.

It's great to find football chat on here occasionally rather than the politics isn't it 

I'd say a fair chunk would end up between 3 and 5, if we go by how previous lists have ended up. Hard to guess which ones actually make it.

Similar thread from 4 years ago: http://forum.insidesport.com.au/2032062/TheTop10YoungstersToWatch

Read that thread from 4 years ago, most of them have played in the a-league and some even have gone overseas and played.

That Martin Lo kid got mentioned a lot given he was 16 at that time, where is he now? Assuming somewhere in the NPL?