Would be better to tie a futsal comp onto the NPL, run it on the synthetic. 5 v 5 maybe split into two teams. not in the death cages though as it encourages poor first touch just smashing it off the sides and injuring each other. run it as a preseason and a tournament comp or something. Theres literally no FFA sanctioned futsal in NNSW - yet there's a state / national selection and competitions over the start of the year that northern have no participation in.
Nationals squad sent out to players today
beginning to think there's very little point to being selected in these squads. The more research I do the more that I've seen that the successful players (one example mat Ryan - but there's plenty around in the NPL - especially if you look at senior NPL football in Sydney) had very little to do with either A-League academies or selections for teams like this, there's quite a few players that are picked up when they are playing senior football at 17/18 and have had nothing to do with with "rep" football like TSP etc coming through.
Makes me wonder if players give up too early because of missing out on things like this at 14 or 15 and if the focus on how footballers are developed is flawed somewhere. I did hear of players actually turning down selection to attend camps especially in the 15s this year.
Definitely not the be all and end all of a footballers life but it never hurts to play in front of national coaches and A league TD’s plus it’s a fun week of football against other elite kids from all over the country.
There will always be players who turn down these opportunities for one reason or another but not everyone has the same drive and ambition so it’s not a surprise.
They turned down wanting to attend the selection camps? Could be a number of reasons for that including cost, lack of interest, on holiday during the first one etc.
But it seems being at those camps does nothing to increase your chances of being selected as there are a number of players that were never invited to either the 1st or 2nd camp and still got selected
Yep - good way to make some more money though. And the number of kids being selected in this team and TSP in general from outside northern nsw (ie influx of kids from the central coast) is pushing local kids out - that's without getting started on what happens with the far north coast.
Also, CB washed out today?? was there a lot of rain on the east side of the lake this week that didn't happen anywhere else?
Anyone know how the Magic 13s went today ?