It’s funny when I reflect on my journey as an Australian football fan, and how my hopes and beliefs have matured over the years.
When I was younger, I used to absolutely eat up lists like these. I was convinced that most of these young prodigies would go on to become Socceroos stars, and if we just kept waiting, our talent pool would be in an amazing place.
Over the past decade or so though, year-by-year I started to slowly realise that youth-level success means absolutely nothing, and that I wasted a lot of time getting excited about players on lists such as these.
After being given a reality check year after year as our youngsters on these lists continued to fail to produce even decent footballing careers, I’m now at a point where I feel almost silly buying into the hype of the ‘next big thing’.
Take for example the current wonder kids that have had the most hype - Volpato and Robertson. Man, I would have been obsessing over these kids back in the day and been screaming to whoever the national coach was at the time ‘give these young superstars a chance!!!’. I’ve only recently realised how immature my beliefs were and how little I know about player development compared to professional coaches, who naturally don’t get over-excited about the next overhyped kid on the scene as they have seen it all before.
Anyway that’s just my story of personal growth lol.
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