From: thomase@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Thomas Esamie)
Subject: Youth Champs Part1 of 2
Organization: /etc/organization
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 12:12:04 GMT


	Hi roundball fans, since Australia will be hosting the World Youth
Cup next year, and the draw is being held on Friday I thought I'd share
this with you. It's a feature article from the Sydney Morning Herald weekend
edition (14.11.1992). It was written by Michael Cockerill the SMH's resident
Soccer journalist, I reproduce it without permission, and be warned the SMH
is *BIG* and as befits a feature article in a big paper it too is BIG. I hope
it proves to be informative and serve as an insight to many of you. My
comments are added in square brackets [].

	Previous Winners : 1977 USSR (in Tunisia)
			   1979 Argentina (Japan)
			   1981 West Germany (Australia)
			   1983 Brazil (Mexico)
			   1985 Brazil (USSR)
			   1987 Yugoslavia (Chile)
			   1989 Portugal (Saudi Arabia)
			   1991 Portugal (Portugal)

Qualifiers : Europe - Turkey, England, Germany, Russia, Norway, Portugal
	     Asia - Saudi Arabia, South Korea
	     South America - Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia
	     North&Central America - Mexico, USA
	     Host - Australia
	     Africa - 2 from Mauritius, Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, Cameroon,
			Senegal, Ethiopia, Nigeria (decided by Feb 10)

	When Aboriginal group the Bangarra Dance Company take the stage at the
Darling Harbour Convention Centre at precisely 3:31pm next Friday, the eyes of
the world will be on Australia. Less than an hour later, Australia, or more
precisely Australian Soccer will be eyeing it's place in the world.
	The draw ceremony for the seventh World Youth Championships will be
modest, rather than extravagant. While similar occasions elsewhere in the soccer
world attract celebrities as diverse as Sophia Loren, Roger Moore and Pavarotti
the 1500 or so people seated around the auditorium next week will have to make
do with Annita Keating [wife of the PM], Evonne Cawley[Wimbledon Champ], and
NSW Premier John Fahey.
	But it is not the personalities which matter, it is the portents. For
Australian Youth Coach Les Scheinflug the key factor will be to receive a good
draw which may help the young socceroos into the semi-finals. For the
organisers, too, the fortunes of the host team may well decide the success of
the championships. And a strong, well organised championships will do no harm
to the ambitions of the Sydney 2000 bid to host the Olympic Games.
	If the hype is to be believed, next Friday's ceremony will be watched
by 4.7 million people around the world through the broadcast of SBS. By the
time Lisa Bade closes the function with the theme song "They're coming to
Australia" [Gee, how imaginative!], the build up to Australia 1993 will have
officially begun. But while the advertising slogan says "It's Big", just how
excited should we be?
	To the uninitiated, a tournament for youth is not really a serious
tournament at all. In most sports, a gathering of the best of the under 20
age group would be interesting, perhaps even intruiging, but rarely would
it command a great deal of attention. So what makes the World Youth 
Championships so different?
	Soccer, of course, is the truly World Game, boasting a membership of
178 nations. Apart from North America, the Antipodes and Japan it is the 
national sport, the elixir for the masses in every other country on Earth. For
that reason a tournament bringing together the best of the next generation
assumes genuine significance, a fact recognised by the public, the media, and
the coporate sector alike.
	The statistics bear this out. At the last championships in Portugal
the average attendance was 22859 including a record 127000 for the final, there
were more than 500 media representatives, the TV audience was measured at
2 billion over more than 70 countries, and the tournament cost over $5 million
to stage (although the final audit is still to be released) much of which was
contributed by the major sponsor, Coca-Cola.
	There is also a more abstract appeal to the championships, a factor
which for the purists remains it's greatest attraction - the quality of 
football on show. While the depression of the awful sterility of the 1990
World Cup in Italy has still not evaporated, there have been no such
recriminations in the afterglow of Portugal 1991.
	Youth football encapsulates the best that soccer has to offer - speed,
skill, adventure and, above all, a degree of honesty too often absent from the
sport at senior level. It is refeshing in both its style and content, and in
many ways not far short of the level of the World Cup.
	That players of the calibre of Marco van Basten, Maradona and Julio
Cesar are among the more celebrated graduates of the championships merely
emphasises what a rich seam of talent these championships can unearth. And
there is no reason to believe Australia 1993 will be any different.

	Ian Hunter, like most of his teammates, had visions of joining the 
elite whan he captained the Young Socceroos during the 1981 championships
in Australia."Most of us were hoping that if everything worked out right, then
we would end up going to an overseas club" recalls Hunter, now in semi-
retirement.
	"As it happened it didn't really work out that way (Only David Mitchell
and Jim Patikas have established a successful professional career) but it was
still the experience of a lifetime. We were the first Australian team to 
qualify for the quarter finals of a FIFA competition, and in those days that
was a considerable achievement".
	The 1981 tournament, which heralded the arrival of players such as
Enzo Francescoli, Neil Webb, Rodney Wallace, Mauro Galvao, Choi Soon-Ho,
Dariusz Dziekanowski and Jorge Burruchaga on the international stage, had
real novelty value for Australian audiences, who at that time were still in
comparative isolation.
	By the end of the Tournament, in which the Young Socceroos 
distinguished themselves by going out to eventual winners West Germany only
in the Quarter finals, 286980 people had passed through the turnstiles. The
organisers of next years championships are budgeting for similar attendances.

	.....see next post (hopefully) for the second part

			Thomas the Tank Engine.

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