COMMENT - There’s a problem with the current debate and hysteria over youth development.

One of the biggest criticisms, and misnomers, is that the flawed national curriculum has failed to revitalise this Socceroos squad.

Amid the hysteria it’s important that if blame is going to be apportioned, it’s got to be aimed at the right places.

Let’s go back to the start. The curriculum was launched eight years ago, in May 2009.

As part of the roll out of the curriculum, FFA launched the Skills Acquisition Program (SAP) in NSW – a key underpinning program for 9-12 year-olds. After a year piloting the program, this was then slowly introduced to other state federations, some of whom resisted the changes until 2014.

With a bit of simple maths, it is clear that of the current Socceroos squad, only Riley McGree is young enough to have been exposed to the curriculum during his development years.

Tim Cahill, Riley McGree and Brad Smith Source: News Corp Australia

However, McGree grew up in South Australia, a state which didn’t implement SAP until 2012. That means McGree would have been 12 by the time a key tenant of the curriculum was launched in his state – i.e. meaning he missed the first three years of that development phase.

There has also been a misnomer about how the curriculum has led to diminishing results at youth national team level, with the Joeys (U17), Young Socceroos (U20) and Olyroos (U23) all failing to qualify for major international tournaments since its launch.

Yet there are still a host of underage internationals who were not exposed to the NFC development system until after those SAP years.

This is not a justification of the curriculum, these are just facts.

Australia's coach Ange Postecoglou (C) Source: AFP

In essence, the 2009 version of the curriculum was a starting point for football in Australia – a document which outlined the gaps in the previous youth development system.

It wasn’t until 2013 when the second edition of the curriculum was released, which provided the football community with ‘how’ the lofty ambitions stated would be achieved.

Curriculum version two was in a sense a clarification of a document which left the football development community divided. The message wasn’t delivered clearly and by the time it trickled down to the masses, people’s noses were out of joint or they were simply confused as to how this applied to them on the coalface.

Riley McGree of United. Source: AAP

This is despite the 2009 version stating what was needed for the plan to be a success.

“Underpinning the implementation of the National Curriculum will be the adoption of a consistent structural approach within each State and Territory which will include the appointment of a Technical Director responsible for rolling out the Curriculum in their particular geographical region,” then chief executive Ben Buckley said in his foreword.

To this day there has not been the adoption of a consistent approach, making it difficult to judge the curriculum on its merits.

This doesn’t mean we cannot discuss the curriculum and our youth development system as a whole. But we might be better served analysing the flaws and struggles in the roll out of the plan – with stakeholders up and down the country failing to understand the messages in the curriculum or failing to buy into ‘how’ it will improve youth development (hence the need to release an entirely new 300-page second edition).

This means we are still yet to see so much of the curriculum come to life. Why is that? Let’s ask that question.

Fox Sports football digital journalist Kate Cohen is also a youth coach at the Sydney FC Academy and technical analyst for the Young Matildas