2022 NPL Youth thread

[Aegon]

There’s plenty of players whose parents aren’t on the forum here, or know the inside out of the competitions. There’s plenty of untapped potential.

I would say this is much less so than in the past.
Consider that JDL takes approximately 300 kids just in under 12's.
ID 12's has 10 divisions of 8 teams with 14 (guess) players per team.
1000-1100 players rounded down as some divisions have less than 8 teams and some teams would have less than 14 players.
So about 27-28% of players in their age group are playing JDL already.
When Zone SAP existed it was closer to 4-5% were not playing miniroos/ID's.
Several clubs I know of have taken absolute standout players from miniroos/ID's who even after only missing 1, 2 or 3 season of JDL are significantly behind the other players.

I know of one player in particular who has played up 2 years above his own age group in ID A's for many years who this year has moved to an NL1 club in his own age group. Whilst he doesn't look out of place, he is not running rings around the opposition.

I’d hazard a guess and say, no NPL club scouts community games.

This actually is happening in JDL ages. Can 100% confirm at my sons club at a minimum.

I used the example earlier of Warners bay. Are they entitled to enter teams into NPL youth comps if they meet criteria?

I certainly hope they have considered this and will allow for it in the future. Considering youth and seniors are going to be decoupled there is no reason to limit who can and cannot submit teams to participate.