Later this year, Australia’s U17 Men’s team ‘The Joeys’ will take part in their first major tournament since 2015. As the tournament will be in November, those contracted to A-League teams will miss A-League or Y-League matches to participate.
A similar point was raised for The U23 Olympic Qualifiers at the start of the year, as players selected in the qualifying matches were expected to abandon their professional clubs mid-season and miss 2 rounds of matches to play for the U23 National Teams. Some clubs refused to allow players to participate, while other teams allowed the players to go, only to criticise their selections at the weekly press conferences.
Admittedly the 18-23 age group of the Olympic teams has more of an impact on their club side than the 15-17 age group of the U17 teams. The club or country debate is age old in football circles. But what is the point in Junior World Cups?
Australia’s most successful U17 World Cup was 1999. The squad of 18 made it through to the final for the first – and to this day only – time in Australia’s history. Before losing on penalties to Brazil. Australia and Brazil being very different footballing nations gives us a nice comparison to work with. How many finalists went on to play for their respective senior National Teams? 9. 5 Brazilians and 4 Australians. Was this an anomaly? No. In 2001 the finalists were France and Nigeria. Again, there were 9 players – mostly French – good enough to play for the senior National Team. In 2003 It was Brazil and Spain. Only 5 players progressed from there.
Watch: Australia Vs Brazil at The 1999 U17 World Cup
Looking at the individual players from the 1999 Australian team. Adrian Madaschi only featured 5 times for the senior National Team. But Jade North, Scott McDonald and Josh Kennedy all played more than 20 senior matches. With Kennedy featuring at the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Would these 4 have made the senior team without playing for the U17s? It is impossible to say retrospectively, but of Kennedy’s 22 team mates at the 2006 FIFA World Cup, only 8 had appeared for the U17 National Team. Showing it is not essential to play for The U17s to make the senior team.
So what is the point of junior World Cups? Scouting. U17, U20 and U23 World Cups gather the top talent in the one place where clubs can watch them and attempt to sign them cheaply and build them towards their own senior teams. From that 1999 Australian team; Shane Cansdell-Sherriff and Scott McDonald signed for EPL clubs Leeds and Southampton respectively, Josh Kennedy signed for Bundesliga club VfL Wolfsburg, while Wayne Shroj attracted the attention of European giants Bayern Munich.
Heading into this iteration of The U17 World Cup, there are 5 potential Australian representatives already in European clubs’ youth teams. Riley Warland is at Fulham, Caleb Watts is at Southampton, Diego Alonso is at Valencia, Doni Grdic is at HNK Šibernik and Tristan Hammond is at Sporting Lisbon. Assuming these 5 make the final squad come November, there will be 17 Australian based players all potential targets for scouts.
Australian Youth Football 