I'm now into the Aussie Scout Podcast, but haven't finished. The ironing ran out! I'm in the wife's good books! She thinks the G and G Pods are a good thing!
Is this Aussie Scout, Tim Palmer, the pro scout, and former/current coach of SFC youth teams?
Initially, given what AS said, it sounds like he isn't. After waxing lyrical about the Pods I've listened to, I though the start of this one seemed amateurish and was going to lack the profound insights of the serious guest stakeholders in the game prevalent in previous Pods I've heard.
Alex advanced a view based on spurious rationale - about City success ( playing youth), Jets success ( playing youth), and a generic comment about AL academies in general. These were based on very small sample sizes. At that time, I thought it would be good to have a guest on the Pods, who has insight into the e and salient characteristics of all the e AL academies. Danny Graystone, a previous Pod guest knew a lot about Melb Vic and Melb City, having coached at the former.
Since I've lauded previous Pods, I will further advance criticisms. AS claimed he had
'heard' about various young players in AL acads. Based on what football criteria and what was the background of the sources of info?
Then after this, some terrific stuff appeared in this Pod!
* AS mentioned young players needing more resources in underage national teams. Alex sagely countered that the long term development in paramount. Excellent point! Underage football is short term. Berger and Baan were always broadcasting this as Football Aus TDs. That in Europe nobody cared about youth results, compared to seniors. However, teams like Argentina constantly have production lines.
There is also a lot of overage cheating involved in WC Youth comps. Plus players develop at different levels.
* AS then drew up some insightful stats/data comparing the AL and Serbian Superleague in terms of minutes played by youth players. I think this is a really interesting comparison - not using a Big Five UEFA league, but a middle UEFA league. Serbia has first year players averaging 540 mins over the season, whilst AL has 240 mins per first year player.
Also, AS described the league being dominated by Red Star - Degenek's former club. Red Star sounds like one of the Big 30 or 40 clubs outside the Big Five UEFA leagues.
* AS cited double the youth mins played by young players in the AL since COVID. Really interesting to hear this.
He has suggested that AL clubs need to see financial advantages of academies, rather than perceiving them as a cost. IMO Melb City seem to be producing a lot of impressive match ready talent through their academy. Are they producing more finished product than other AL acads? If they are, why?
* With rampant overage cheating, I wouldn't worry too much about Aus teams struggling to beat Thai, Indo and Viet underage teams, in ASEAN, particularly away in those very hot and humid conditions. Ali Edwards, former Ass Tech Dir in Aus, former Socceroo, has had many presentations at National Conferences where he sheds light on under age cheating in WC underage comps.
These tough games overseas build resilience. Plus many underage teams are not released by AL clubs, or even UEFA clubs, for underage international team comps. Underage coaches in the Football Aus Tech Dept in Aus in the past use technical expertise, comparatively, to appraise underage teams/players. This is because technique takes so long to develop. There are no short cuts. Football conditioning, tactical nous, insight, communication can be developed quite quickly, later on, in players' careers.
In England, Netherlands and Denmark, many insightful football pro stakeholders in the know, believe Aus is a tough, battle hardened, match-fit national team, used to playing in tough conditions away, right up through underage national team to senior ranks - unlike many UEFA international teams who play in comfortable conditions, then struggle at WCs in tough, unfamiliar conditions in Africa, South America, Middle-east.
There has been some really good content in this Pod.