YES, ladies and gentleman, it’s that time of the year again. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later…

Mr Frank Farina has, once again, voiced his humble opinion on the National Youth League. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just that last time this happened he had no point whatsoever.

This time, the topic of choice is not salary caps or overage players - it's the late kick off of this year's National Youth League season.

As per last year, the NYL kicked off several weeks after the A-League, rather than at the same time as it. I'm not 100% sure why but I'm fairly certain it was to coincide with the conclusion of most state league seasons.

In my opinion, this is completely logical. Considering that the vast majority of NYL players spent the winter months in these state leagues, there would undoubtedly be a problem for both the NYL and the state leagues if so many players were required to spend several weeks juggling playing in two leagues.

As it was, problems were created by the NYL kicking off as late as mid-September. Several NYL players had state league grand finals and missed the opening round or two of competition.

Yet, according to Farina, the kickoff should've been earlier because it disadvantaged those NYL players who were vying for spots in the U-20 World Cup squad. His particular criticism centred around Isaka Cernak not being selected - "unable to crack a berth in the Roar's A-League team, Isaka has been restricted to training only because of the youth league's later start".

Firstly, maybe Cernak just wasn't good enough to make the squad. The fact that he wasn't able to break into an A-League squad says a fair bit. Mind you, the same could be said for Tommy Oar, Sam Munro and Sam Gallagher - but they didn't actually end up playing in the world cup anyway. Well, Oar did. But not to great effect.

At any rate, that certainly doesn't warrant pushing back the start of the youth league season to the detriment of other players, clubs and leagues.

Secondly, Cernak's "lack of football" can't exactly have put him at THAT much of a disadvantage. If one is to look at the final squad chosen for the tournament, many of the players selected had played little or no football in the few months leading up to the WC.

Backup keeper Andrew Redmayne had very little time on the park in pre-season and had played no league games for months when he was selected. Midfielder Ben Kantarovski had only played 30 minutes of the Jets round 3 fixture against Perth, before being carted off injured and he was still selected. Nathan Elasi, Matthew Jurman, Aaron Mooy and many other squad members had only played a few reserve games or pre-season matches before being selected. This, evidently, did not harm their selection.

It's also important to note that Cernak, an attacking midfielder, was up against the likes of James Holland, Tahj Minniecon, and Kofi Danning. All three of them are exceptional young players and it would take someone seriously brilliant to deny them a spot in any Australian youth squad.

A few weeks ago I had the chance to speak with Central Coast Mariners' National Youth League coach Tony Walmsley and asked what he thought about Farina's proposal of an earlier kick off time. He replied "it would be great if it did but not in the context of the fact that we don't get players that are playing state league [football] until they've finished their state league seasons. So for us, we only got four players back this week [September 19] and haven't seen most of the players on a regular basis for the whole of pre-season."

Walmsley's words are true. If only Farina could see it this way too.

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On a different note, it seems Miron Bleiberg and his team at GCU have unearthed a gem in GCU youth team's number 9, Chris Harold. He's already bagged three goals in three appearances for the youth team and has the most amazing work rate - during the match against the Mariners the other week he just ran and ran and ran. His ability to get into goal scoring positions is phenomenal too.

Sound familiar to you? Well, with all those qualities and the number 9 on his back, he could very well be Shane Smeltz mark 2.

And did I mention he's only 17?

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Funny Football Feature of the week...

Goes to the Aston Villa website.

Have you ever wanted to watch Nigel Reo-Coker spin around repeatedly? Well now you can! Just go here and press the refresh button over and over again. While you're there check out Aussie U-20 international Chris "revolving" Herd and Irishman-turned-Aussie Shane "twirling" Lowry too!

Now THAT is what A-League websites are missing!