Adelaide United FC’s National Youth League Coach Joe Mullen is gradually narrowing down the list of names vying for just 12 spots in The Reds’
Youth squad.

Players trying to secure a place on the Youth Team roster were put through their paces with two trial matches against the South Australian Sports Institute (SASI) last week and Mullen says he has used these matches and a series of testing and training to get an indication of the talent he wants.

“It’s getting closer. We’ve been going for the past seven or eight weeks with trials and practice sessions and then we’ve followed it up by having two trial matches using two different groups,” Mullen said.

“From that we’ll start to pull one squad of 16-18 players together and then do further testing with this group before we start to offer youth league agreements to some of them.”

While Mullen has an idea of who he will include in his squad, the former NSL player who has previously coached South Australian representative sides as well as teams in the Victorian Premier League and South Australian local leagues is keeping selections close to his chest.

Mullen has earmarked the second week of August for when he hopes to have compiled his squad and says the selection process has been an extremely difficult one with the talent he has had to choose from.

“The headache I’m going to have is leaving players out, which is better than scrounging to get decent players," said Mullen.

"We’ve got plenty here and the problem I’m going to have is leaving good players out because there are just not enough spots. The talent on show has been a real highlight.

“I can see it being the second week of August before we give our last national league contract away.”

Mullen credited the dedication of the players trialling as well as the quality of the SASI talent, and says he has felt privileged dealing with the best youth players in South Australia.

“This is exciting because I’m working with the best young players in the state at a young level," he added. "In the past when I’ve coached it has been about winning whereas this is more about development.

"We still want to win, there’s no doubt about that, but primarily the main reason is to develop young players and that is very exciting.

“It’s hard on the players because they’ve also got club commitments but their commitment and endeavour has been first class and I couldn’t have asked for more.”