Yes paul what ever you say 

You’re no policeman buddy. 

Do you actually know what you're actually posting? What's cancel culture have to do with this? Besides me asking you move all American political talk in et? Or is that too hard ??

Because a person I mention is a politician doesn’t mean it’s a political discussion at all. Try your cancel culture somewhere else.

Re the OFC:  Yeah nah.

Again must post something that doesn't involve the topic ?? If you wanna talk American politics go into extra time .

Why is it that you remind me of Joe Biden?

You are unique, but definitely not in a good way. 

yer I have to agree with nunya and many others staying with AFC.
OFC is a joke, to improve you stay in the region that has better NT's.
Fault is our own, well our Governance that has neglected looking ahead but riding off the back of the 06 break through/success and ongoing qualification pocketing the benefit and prestige being in the WC.
FFA probably thought AL was going to deliver the next stars to step in, close Canberra etcetc.....short sightedness never delivers and we've been good at that last 15yrs.

OP has yet to raise a single good point. Keeps screaming at the walls. AFC is not to blame for development within our own country. I'd rather fail to make a world cup in Asia then be bored as bat shit for 4 years and then fail to make a world cup after losing 1 match to Argentina or Columbia or Peru etc. It's like you are trying so hard to blame Asia for the mistakes of the FFA. Strawman argument if I've ever seen one. Sounds like someone didn't grow up watching us soul crushing lose at the final hurdle every 4 years. Not be invited to play in the Asian cup, not be invited to play in the ACL. We made the youth world cup we made the olympics and have qualified for every world cup so far and I think every time we qualify we get $12 million and we won the Asian Cup in 2015.

Amazing so many here ignore the fact that It was easier for Oz players to get a gig in Europe during the NSL years. Apart from stricter visa restrictions African players have been the flavour of Europe.

Best players outside of Europe generally go to Europes top leagues young Son Heung-min probably the best player Asia has ever produced went to Germany at 16 - he didnt ever play in the K-league (interestingly) 

Christian Pulisic the best player USA have ever produced was scouted by BVB at 17 

Harry Kewell was 17 when he went too Leeds.... 

You need to generally be picked up very young to hit the top levels of football our current system is seeing players develop too late thus is why we are incredibility shit these days - it has nothing to do with a 'lag' from the NSL days like someone else suggested.

This is even true for South American players Kaka moved to Ac Milan when he was 20 
Messi literally went to FCB as a kid (15?)
Luis Suárez moved to Holland at 19 

Isn't the problem that most of the youngsters who've gone O/S to try there luck aren't playing at good levels and definitely not playing enough. When you're young you need to play, so, imo they should go to Asia for a couple of years then try Europe.😀 Better still the FFA should get a team of Aus based NT players and play them in the Aleague.

Add in the fact the kids coming through have experienced the Curriculum imposed by the FFA and state feds a decade ago and starting to filter into senior football and u20 football in NPL too.

Just have to find a way to create better environments at NPL level and most importantly more games.

Definitely unpopular. How does NZ have a better NZ than us?

They're a damn sight better than where things were 10-15 years ago. And people have to realise that youth development has a huge time lag effect. The dearth of talent now is really a product of the black hole of 2005-10, when the NSL clubs scaled back to state league and A-League clubs were still finding their feet. Whether the SFC, WSW or MC academies are presently cultivating top-level footballers will only be known well into the 2020s. Investment in training facilities and development of coaching talent pays dividends on a very long-term basis.

Don’t know about you guys but I would to see some sort of model akin to Clairefontaine in France where an environment for kids to get the best coaching from 12-15 in a best vs best way and they can go and play for their club in the weekend.

Maybe do this to improve the depth of players that are not in aleague academy level if the later isn’t in the required level?

You don’t think Sydney FC, WSW who have fantastic facilities are not up to the level required? What do you think they missing because both are starting to develop some very good players.

Melb City have a great base in cherry picking the best talent all over the country.

The linchpin of the old system was the AIS, which provided an immersive, professional-like training environment for kids in their teenage years, which combined with getting first team action in the NSL, until they left for Europe at age 18-20. It was great at developing a generation of Socceroos-level players, but there was yawning gulf below that, as anyone who didn't make the cut was stuck in a semi-pro comp.

The idea now is that the academies of the big clubs should essentially replace what the AIS was doing (and this is also what happens in Europe, where player development is club-based, whereas the AIS was predicated on the Eastern bloc centralised sports development model). In theory this should mean 8-10 AIS's, but in practice none of them are anywhere near that level, and it will take a long time before they are, if we even have the population base to support that. Perhaps one day the big Sydney and Melbourne clubs will be something approximating this, and able to produce a lucrative pipeline of talent. But we need structural change before that happens.

We're not NZ, Canada etc have similar problems 

but they arent stupid enough to leave there confederation for zero actually benefit.

But we’re not suppose to be unique lol

I agree.....


But our domestic situation will always be the way it is bcuz of lack of $$$ - ppl have mentioned the lack of incentive to develop youth. The Top of Australian football the 'A-league' is 'cash strapped' 

We cant change the fact that we are almost 3rd world in-terms of $$ in football here in Australia but we are a paying 1st world prices for everything like stadium hire and marketing costs etc ...

So players are still good enough to get picked for the national youth team, but because they are not playing an extra 3 or 4 games at a Youth WC all the ALeague coaches and scouts never hear about them till they are 22?
i think this says more about our domestic situation than it does about OFC or AFC?

And sometimes that was even the same number as they planned to have at the start of the season! :hehe:

a lot less becuz our development is shit and opportunities for young players to show there stuff is limited due to inability to quality for youth competitions. 

Why dont we qualify now? becuz we rarely have 11 good young players and we are up against countries pouring billions into youth development and at age 16-19 that extra $$$ goes a long way - ie you dont need to worry about studying/working etc.  In every generation we have 3-4 potentially really good players in the old system at least 2 of them were getting picked up every every big youth tournament we went though back in the day and being developed by good clubs in good leagues. 

Now these players aren't getting picked up till they are older >22 years old, too old for a lot of clubs to try mold into a top player. They end up in spuds leagues like China, Scotland etc and go no where. The AL is terrible at developing players bcuz there isnt any $$ in it for the clubs due to the salary cap. Thus Australia is shit at football probably the worst we have ever been (in my life time) regardless of qualifying for world cups we are absolute trash  

Aleague average age last season before COVID: 32 years per starting 11.

With the lack of teams and influx of foreign spots in key positions in the field, it’s meant less opportunities for young players to learn their craft as pro footballers unlike the NSL era where it had more teams and less foreign spots.

Clubs are just too lazy to develop young players as they feel it’s not a big enough incentive to do so which is why we see the recycling aspect to the league too.

Here is a question how many in the NSL era would have developed in the same rate in the aleague era? 

I don’t expect a home based squad to all be picked up after a FIFA final  tournament. After leaving OFC we no longer have this platform where perhaps 1,2 or 3 players could get a European contract after each tournament (depending on age etc.)

The one possible saving grace in your theory Dav is that Oceania will have a guaranteed qualifying spot for future World cups which would keep the "at least we make every world cup now" brigade happy.  Apart from that though, I agree with most that being in a more hotly contested confederation and more difficult qualifation process means that squads that do make it (at all levels) are more likely to be there on merit and at least be competitive. Fix  the broken system here, don't worry about what confederation where in I say.
As for ACL or Oceania CL, despite being the current Oceania team of the century, my club won't be able to compete in either competition because of the racist pigs in charge of soccer now.

A common argument brought up by GG is that we are no longer regularly playing at international youth tournaments (final tournament).

We no longer have a situation/shopfront where our youth are exposed to an international audience. So not as many players are being scouted at an early age.

NZ has taken our spot but doesn’t have the player quality to do anything.