OVERVIEW

As you all are aware, Southland United was created in 2017 aligning with Southland Football’s and Football South’s Strategic Plan more specifically it’s area of Talent Pathways.In November 2016, we have received a letter of support from New Zealand Football and another from Football South encouraging the Southland United process with the introduction of two Youth Teams, making the pathway for the regional talents more clear and aspirational. At the same time, they mentioned in their letters of support we would be one step ahead in the preparation for a regional youth competition – Youth Development League – that had the goal to bring together the most talented players of each federation in the same environment promoting the challenge and best development of those talents.We then started the process in Southland by bringing together a selection of the most talented players available in a single environment, having them training and playing together for the winter season and the old “rep season” merging those two and extending the season. Due to the circumstances in 2017 and planning to start the Youth Development League the year after, we decided to enter our teams into the Otago Youth League, looking for an alternative challenge while we waited for the YDL to start. In 2019, for several reasons that go beyond our area of influence, the YDL was again postponed and we continued to play our teams in the Otago Youth Competitions.At the end of the current winter season (2019), we have been informed by Football South that a pilot of the YDL will take place in 2020. However, this won’t run during the winter season yet but after it – planned to start in September/October 2020. After the pilot, a review will be undertaken to decide whether it is viable and more importantly to extend it to the winter season. There will be no final answers until that review.That said, due to this uncertainty of the scenario in 2021, we have decided to change our format of the Southland Talent/Development space and we will no longer be competing in Otago competitions in 2020. Instead, we will keep developing these players by running this program in a “Academy” Format. This means the squads will still be selected and the players will have access to the same training volume and some practice games. These selected players will have the chance to play the YDL pilot in September – October.According to Football South/Southern United, the new YDL pilot is the new pathway for the players who aspire to get in the Southern United Academy squads and play the National Age Group Tournament at the end of the year in Wellington.Hopefully this provides you with a more clear overview of the process and the reason for the changes in 2020. We are happy to answer personally to any questions that you may have about this.

Youth Teams

Southland United, as the talent/perform hub of Southland Football, is committed to continue to support those boys & girls who show the passion, desire and aspiration to achieve greater levels of football.For the 2020 season, Football South is planning the introduction of the boys Youth Development League, which will be known as “Regions Cup”. This new competition is a 8-10 week league that sits into the talent/development area of Football South and aims to have the most talented players in the Southern region playing in the same environment. This way the players from different regions will be exposed to the same level of competition and this will naturally hopefully simplify the selection of those players into the Southern United squads that will play the National Age Group Tournament in December.It has been approved at the Southland United (SU) committee meeting on the 19th November 2019 the following structure for Youth Football:

1. SU will operate 4 Junior/Youth teams in total: 2 boys teams and 2 girls teams;

2. The boys teams will be U-14 and U-16;

3. The girls teams will be U-12 and U-14.

What changes from 2019 to 2020?

1. All SU Youth teams will operate on an “Academy” format. This means that all our teams will be training between February/March until October but they will not be playing in the Otago Youth competitions like it happened over the last two years.

2. We will keep offering the same volume of training during throughout the season, the same training conditions and structured quality coaching and will provide at least one game every month against challenging opposition to track the progress for boys & girls teams. The opposition will be confirmed at a later stage but we are aiming to arrange some games with Southern United Academy, Wanaka FC Youth, South Canterbury Talent Hub – these are the teams who will be part of the Youth Development League Pilot later in September. In the case where we cannot arrange a game with those teams we will be looking for an alternative at a club level within the Football South region;

3. In July, Football South is organising a 3-4 day Boys Tournament for all the regions with some out of the regions invitations;

4. Our girls teams will also play the South Island Championships, like it happened in 2019;

5. All the players will be available to play for the Southland clubs in the winter competitions. We will ask the players to commit to all the Southland United mid-week training sessions but when the clubs are training on different days, we will encourage the players to train with their clubs too;

6. For 2020 we aim to select wider squads of 24 players whenever possible/necessary, in order to open this opportunity to more players in Southland. This way, we will select a game-day squad selection to each game (boys & girls), to the tournament in July and finally to each Game-Day of the “Regions Cup”;

7. The girls Teams will operate the same way, starting earlier than we did in 2019.

What’s next?

1. We aim to open applications for coaches before the end of November;

2. We expect to run the trials in December and select the squads before Christmas.

3. All teams should start training in February (date TBC)

Article added: Friday 22 November 2019