It's been a good read looking over this older thread.
What a struggle it appears to be in Australia for talents to make their way up the pyramid.
I'm Australian but have lived in Germany for 15 years with my German wife and kids.

Our story is so different.
My son started playing football at age 5 at a club just a 5min drive away.
Fees each year were just a club members fee of about Euro25 back then.We also paid for discounted presentation kit but all game kit was provided by the club and parents took turns washing gear.

My son played mainly in the midfield and often reminded me of how Rogic ran and skipped over tackling legs.

But in his U9 year he decided he wanted to be a keeper.
I wasn't that keen to be honest as the team would miss him in the middle.But the trainer approached me and he suggested he had a feeling Noah would be a really good keeper.
So since it was Noah's sport I let him follow his heart.
Noah played that season in goal and was selected to participate in a talent squad  before being scouted by a 3liga Academy.
There was nothing to be paid to attend the talent squad once a week and they also provided the kit free.
At the Academy again we paid a modest members fee of less than Euro 50.We paid again for presentation kit including winter jackets etc at a discount.

At age 9 Noah played up a year and played in the U11 as a keeper.
After 9 months Noah quit.The older boys never ending mobbing robbing Noah of all confidence.and enjoyment of the game.
Noah spent almost a year out of football.

Then his former trainer called and asked if he wanted to start playing again with his son at another local team.
Noah didn't want too initially but a few months later he asked me if he could go to training.
Noah now in U12 had to catch up on lost time and rebuild his confidence.

He had great trainers here.They never raised their voices and your barely heard them say a thing during a game.
Noah's confidence climbed and his old self started to show.
I owe the trainers my eternal thanks. 

Again Noah was invited to attend a talent squad once a week 40mins away.Again no fees and kit provided for free.
Now in U13 something clicked in Noah he started to do a lot of self training often I would go to the park with him and pass on my Rugby league and cricket experiences where it related to goalkeeping.

His motivation grew and he became really focused at training.
He had a great U13 season in goal and was invited to Mainz05 for a closed sighting with 3 other keepers and a selected amount of field players mixed in with Academy players around late October 2021.

He did fantastic and was invited to come training with the team.
Unfortunately on the day he was suppose to join the training Noah rolled his ankle during school sport in the indoor hall.
We cancelled the training and explained the situation and imagined the training would be rescheduled.
But instead Noah was ghosted.

A week later Noah's trainer called and asked if it was ok for Eintracht Frankfurt to call us.
Noah went to a sighting with the U16 Goalkeeper trainer.
GoPro camera's around him filmed his every move.
He was then asked to train with the Head of the Academies Goalkeeper department.
Eintracht then decided to accept Noah into the Academy.
But the current club didn't want to release him until the season end.
So the two clubs organised for Noah to train twice a week with Eintracht and twice a week with SG Orlen and play for Orlen until season end.

In June 2022 Noah transferred to Eintracht Frankfurt to be a part of the U14 team.
We again paid a members yearly fee of Euro 50.
In the mail arrived the Eintrach Frankfurt scarf and some reading material all civilains get when joining the club.
We have paid not one cent since.Everything is provided by the club.

We only pay for Noah's gloves and boots since Noah doesn't like Nike gloves.Otherwise these would be provided as well.
In October Noah was selected in the Hessen state U14 team.They've only had one training camp and all accommodation and meals were free.
The next camp is planned for the end of Feb 2023.

In April 2023 Noah's U14 team are off to The Dallas Cup for a 10 day International Tournament.
In this regard the club has asked us parents to pay Euro350.
By the way the U18/19 Australian girls National team are competing in this event also.

So a very different experience to what you guys are going through.
The pyramid system works here,the scouts are everywhere and parents aren't left broke chasing a dream.
All the kids haver to do here is play and scouts will  help choose their destination.

Thanks for the update on Noah. Yes Germany does sound like its a much better system no doubt helped by the billions of dollars swirling around the business of football in what is a first class footballing nation.

Your sons journey is a great example of perseverance and opportunity (and the wisdom to recognise opportunity). Anyone who tells you that the road to ultimate success is linear is probably wrong. Just like you need to experience sad to be happy a player needs to experience failure in order to then achieve at their own terms.

A word of warning about the German system (which is normal) is that your chances of being a pro footballer are much higher if you join an academy after 16 than if you were to join at 13. The success stories at 13 are really quite low....

This points to issues around talent id at such a young age.

Wishing Noah all the best

I think talent ID works at a young age as the academies get their results.
The issue that arises between 13 -16 is puberty and growth rate.
At Hamburg they had a brilliant technically correct goalkeeper 
a few years back and was perfect in the junior goals.
He didn’t grow and the full size goals were a problem.They let him go.That’s just one example.
Because of those massive body and growth  changes in boys during this age period it’s probably why a lot of boys that weren’t scouted younger might be making  more impact now.
Noah’s team play up a year in the state league and man some of those U15 boys are giants.On the wings you see the speed difference one year age difference can make.
Talent ID can’t identify how the kid will grow.Small teens are really at a disadvantage no matter how good their technique is.
Recently a Japanese U16 team played against Eintracht’s U16 in a friendly.
The Japanese boys were smaller than Noah’s U14 boys except for a few boys.
Technically they played really nice football.But in the end the bigger,faster boys won.
As a goalkeeper we have to hope Noah keeps growing in the next 3 years.He’s already as tall as  Ryan at 13.
As I said in the post above.All the boys can do here is play football and work hard.
The  decisions about moving forward into the professional ranks will always be decided by others.

”In football large countries like Germany, players aren’t “developed”, they are found. Scouting is more important than infrastructure/ coaching.

This encapsulates my complaint about our coaching ideas. Ultimately, we think we can deconstruct a player, analyse him and make a new and improved one. We forget that we model our player on one who came into existence without our intervention. We can't help ourselves in our quest to control and standardise.”

Interesting comments for me, and something I have witnessed first hand in Europe, every European nation I’ve been to, they have scouts everywhere.
Here?
Never seen it at the younger ages, U18 and below, here in Australia, we filter players by trials for sure, but no one is out there scouting.

Agree Arthur

in my experience coaches, clubs, td’s love to take credit for players but truth is skill is developed by 13 sometimes through parents, often in the school yard and sometimes by clubs. On field intelligence can develop from so many areas including other sports. 

Zoltan - 15 Oct 2017 11:38 AM

Yeh he’s great. Loving it at the moment. Thanks for asking

Wow. What a different pathway.

AFL is a better way to go here in Aus. If your athletically good to go you have a great chance. Soccer football pathway its a disgrace.

Looks like current soccer pathway is Scotland 

I think if you want to work in football, whether coaching, playing or anything else, you are better off going to Europe at a young age.

yep agreed, you have a promising kid, if you have the motivation send vids etc all you can to OS Clubs, GTFO if you can, its ametuer hour here for years and years even though Clubs show they are improving.
All the shop front has improved but not the content.
Its still very much who you know and many TD's have blinkers on.
Club trials, Clubs mislead countless parents and promising players so they get 40/60 turn up BUT the TD is only looking to fill 1 or 2 positions.
Say up front before Trials, we are looking to fill X positions only for RB CDM for eg, please attend if thats your preffered position.

I've watched so so many young fellas and parents walk away pissed off once they really find out what the Club's/TD agenda was.

They could have gone to opposing Clubs Trials - for usually many Trials are held similar times.

Agree. I have seen this. It's an underground type system with high $$ costs where 99.999% of kids here wont earn a cent.
Ive also seen TD's at local NPL clubs not wanting kids going to rep teams or academies so they can stay and win NPL titles and thus give the TD a good rep. 
Parents scouting and paying ex Aleague coaches for training to get their names on the lips of selectors. This is for the privilege to pay more $1000s to play a higher league.

A-League academies have to approach the NPL team expressing an interest in their player. Disgusting that some NPL clubs don't tell the players or the parents about the approach. So when the kid grows up he will never know that he could have played for an a-league academy because some idiot was selfish. Parents and players need to look after themselves. Be smart selfish. Always keep an eye out for team, club, td agendas. Clubs that actively promote their kids getting picked up by a-league clubs are the ones you should be focusing on. Look at Facebook...

Also ask around - which clubs have a high representation moving on to a-league

These stories are just one of the many issues wrong in this country due to our geography, not no1 sport AND gross oversight from the powers above for far too long.
Especially once AL came along, NPL's fending for themselves more and more the big prob is $$$'s.
If I recall right (someone else who knows better please come in here) the ol FA allowed the State Feds to co ordinate Development through the Clubs.
In turn its has become a cash grab to run the Club, in turn for some to pay for 1st players as people lead you to believe.
Then it also opened the door for the Private Academies, even I nearly got trapped into paying for the now defunct Milan Academy based here in Syd due to connections we had a trial run, they approved one of my boys.
It presented great training BUT at the time NO competition games each week for they had no teams entered in the local comps, so the only games were arranged ones with other academies by each age group, if your age group had numbers way over 20 obviously they could only make use of say 15/18 players, the rest missed out till maybe next time IF they selected you.
As we know, kids at those good young ages of develpoment need games every week.
I looked at my son and said, sorry mate, you want game time every week we said thanks but no thanks.
Couple of years later I noticed they finally got approval putting in 1 or 2 age groups into a Association comp.
We went got into a NPL Club thankfully by then.

Zoltan I hear you but as you know all the checking jumping around takes time, before you know it you've lost another crucial year for those not with enough savvy and network.
How many promising kids we have lost to the game due to the whole broken system would be massive as we all know.

I can only HOPE this NSD gets up and running sooner or later, we need more well run Clubs (turning Pro) so as we can have more promising kids getting IN the game we and they love and importantly more affordable for those who struggle at the costs that currently stand.

spot on LFS re NSD

My lad has been in an Academy for 18 months. I still have to coach him to fix technical points & body shape. Some kids do it naturally.
Coaches talk the talk but spent too much on running, slow passing drills but very little on what they need, structure, body position, pre scanning is non existent and 1st touch is poor for most.
I'm astounded. Thinking about starting my own coaching clinic. 
Alot to be said for those older ex players coaching NPL

Agree. Not enough technical coaching around those things you mentioned. Needs constant reinforcement in the early years….

my son received this from no club not even Hal. I am his technical coach 

My husband has always been my daughter's technical coach for this reason. We have shyed away from academy's and SAP for this reason, but the opportunity for a clever u12 female player are very limited if you are not happy with the SAP program. She decided to go back to local community club this year. A trial was held and our daughter got into the so called development squad (which is the only div 1 team at the club), for which there is an additional fee of $275 for extra coaching by a company one night per week. I thought community clubs were all about community and wanting to secure the best local talent that they could, but they insist that this extra training is required for the whole team regardless of whether individuals need it or not (to cover costs!). I'd appreciate thoughts on this.

G’day. I think that because your daughter is an elite type squad they want to provide a higher level of skill based training compared to the other ‘community’ teams. Hence the extra charge which sounds reasonable. Community clubs are exactly that - not elite like npl but more fun based for lower level players. But some community clubs do have aspirations and try and cater for better players like your daughter. Ultimately your daughter will need to go npl in order to get higher standard opposition week in and week out. 

Thank you, that is helpful to have someone else's thoughts, we'll go ahead with the club this season.  Agreed, we had thought NPL would be the way to go when she's a little older if she's keen.

Do you know anything about this company providing the development training?
Like what level license does the trainer hold ?
Wouldn't it be better for the club to pay one of its own through the course levels?
Even if all the club parents threw in $10 bucks a year they could get their own trainers trained.
That would benefit the club and players.
Instead of money going to a 3rd party it would be invested into the club.

The company is called K@n0, you might be familiar with them?  Apparently we will get coaches with C and B licence coaching qualifications, and we are told these coaches are more qualified then the regular K@n0 coaches. Anyone else had any experience with this particular company?

Hey Rachael,
No I don't know of them.
A  C license is entry level.
It allows you to train Youth upto U15 in Germany or any District team (Tier 8 or below)
It cost €300 to do the course here.
As I said you parents should hassle the club and suggest the benefits of them putting trainers through the course themselves.
I just checked online and can't believe they charge $1190.00 in Australia thats absurd. Anyway 22 parents throwing 50bucks in each would pay for that.
Cheaper than all of you paying $250.
Think about how many trainers the club could train to get their C license. 22 parents paying $250 bucks would pay for 5 trainers to get their C license.

My lad is at a crossroads here. Stay with Academy who doesn't really care about development or find a good NPL coach and team. He isnt playing as well as before and many of the other kids have their own agendas to further their.own cause and will throw each other under a bus to get there. Some of the behaviour from coaches are somewhat non effective for the age of these lads. 

My 2 cents deebee

There is no right or wrong. Every season whether a success or not is a learning experience. It's hard to see that when its happening. Ideally all 'young players' should have a crisis and they push through to become 'men footballers'. You can't control everything nor should you. Let it play out imo...

As a parent with a technically capable kid now at NPL2 U13, always felt that there are too many clubs with SAP licences and in the NPL with kids who can barely pass let alone control the ball. The skill level is woeful. Paying $3k is ok if the kids are improving but they cant if the team is actually playing at lower level.  Take a look at results, common to see teams getting flogged 5-0+ Dont get me started on the referee decisions. If your kid manages not to get injured in the game, they will certainly get stuffed in training as the gumbies dont know the difference between a ball and an ankle….. I dont know what an academy in Europe is like, but from what we have seen in youth in Oz, we will struggle to get talented kids turn pro. Hope Im wrong as we could become the equivalent EPL of the southern hemisphere

I'll start you on the referee decisions. Do go on.

Hey. 
We definitely learnt a lesson. We stuck with the program and the TD/coach got sacked for indiscretions. Partly for focusing on his paying private academy kids. Not surprised, parents pay at every turn.
At every level expect nothing, put your own effort in and enjoy it. The coaching cant be trusted in my area. Every parent will throw your kid under a bus to get theirs in. Lots of talking to coaching staff on the quiet.
Its a toxic environment, be careful.

Every industry, sport and pursuit can be construed as toxic. Every parent should be assisting their children in taking their learnings into their own hands. Self mastery and integrity to borrow a term from yoga. 

Agree. Toxic environments in youth sports can have a profound and lasting impact on children, affecting not only their performance on the field but their emotional and psychological well-being. Such environments are often characterized by extreme pressure from coaches, parents, and sometimes peers to win at all costs, neglecting the importance of sportsmanship, fun, and personal growth. This undue stress can lead to anxiety, loss of self-esteem, and a decrease in the love for the sport, ultimately pushing kids away from participating in physical activities.