If the product of a club's junior academy is an indicator of its development programme and its ability to generate a production line of players for its senior team in years to come, then Western Sydney Wanderers and Melbourne City have a jump on their A-League rivals.
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Between them, the two clubs have supplied 15 of the 23-man squad for the Australian party that will compete in the Under 19 Asian Championships in Hanoi in November.
City have eight players in the group, the Wanderers seven. The next best represented club is Brisbane Roar (three). In contrast to their cross city rivals, powerhouse Melbourne Victory have only one, as have champions Sydney.
Australia were originally scheduled to host Group J of the qualification process in Shepparton, Victoria, however the federal government's decision not to grant visas to the team from DPR Korea (North Korea) forced the Asian Football Confederation to move the mini-tournament to a neutral venue.
As well as Australia and North Korea, Group J includes the Northern Mariana Islands and Hong Kong. Australia need to top Group J in Vietnam, or be one of the five best runners-up from the 10 groups, to advance to next year's AFC U19 Championship finals, which will be held in Indonesia.
"It's disappointing that we aren't able to play these qualification matches in our own backyard, but it will be a great experience for the boys to play in Vietnam," said the squad's coach, Ufuk Talay.
"There is almost 12 months between the qualification phase and next year's championship proper, so this will give us a good window to prepare the squad should we successfully qualify."
SQUAD: Daniel Arzani (Melbourne City), Nathaniel Atkinson (Melbourne City), Jay Barnett (Brisbane Roar), Joshua Cavallo (Melbourne City), Mathieu Cordier (Western Sydney Wanderers) James Delianov (GK) (Melbourne City), Duro Dragicevic (GK) (Sydney FC), Macklin Freke (GK) (Brisbane Roar), Denis Genreau (Melbourne City), Kosta Grozos (Western Sydney Wanderers), Jacob Italiano (Perth Glory), Joel King (uncontracted), Fabian Monge (Western Sydney Wanderers), Tass Mourdoukoutas (Western Sydney Wanderers), Moudi Najjar (Western Sydney Wanderers), Ramy Najjarine (Melbourne City), Dylan Pierias (Melbourne City), Aaron Reardon (Brisbane Roar), John Roberts (Melbourne City), Tate Russell (Western Sydney Wanderers), Christian Theoharous (Melbourne Victory), Marc Tokich (Western Sydney Wanderers), Kai Trewin (uncontracted).
