While the A-League is a fully professional competition with bigger crowds, more money and with greater participation numbers than ever before, the opportunities for aspiring young footballers at the elite level are limited.

During Postecoglou’s playing and coaching era the National Soccer League regularly had 14-16 teams, but since the A-League’s inception the number of teams competing has rarely risen above 10 (it was 11 in 2010/11).

And the Socceroos boss says it’s time for the top tier of Australian football to catch up to the ever-expanding number of grass roots participants.

Speaking exclusively to FourFourTwo Postecoglou said: “The undeniable fact is, that we’ve got more kids playing the game than we have ever had, and the reality of it is we have less opportunities than we’ve ever had.

Reflecting on his own playing career, Postecoglou believes that if he was coming up in today’s climate, he would have missed out on making it as a professional footballer.

 “Even though the NSL was semi-professional when I grew up in Melbourne as a 17-year-old there was literally four or five teams that I could’ve played for,” he said.

 “If I had any sort of talent I would’ve got an opportunity somewhere.

“Today in Melbourne you are growing up with only two clubs to play for and potentially four or five new contracts every year for young players. I would not have broken through.

“That’s something that becomes really important when you are talking about where the next talented players are going to come from. If we are closing the door on kids before they even get an opportunity then we are minimising the chance of producing the next world class player."

Out of the 199 Aussies who are currently playing overseas, 82 are aged 21 and under and Postecoglou feels young Australian footballers shouldn’t be forced to play abroad because of a lack of clubs at home.

“If we’ve got kids that are coming through and they are talented, we don’t want all of them leaving for overseas because they can’t get an opportunity here,” he said.

“If we had more professional clubs then hopefully it would mean more talent coming through.

“That is why I talk about (A-League) expansion. There are obviously a lot of other issues that come into play but if we are getting more numbers playing the game more than ever then we have got to provide more opportunities.

“If you are growing up in Adelaide, Brisbane or Perth and you’ve only got one team to play for I don’t think that’s enough.