Our Hopes

Other than the A national team, which gets the most coverage in public and media, The Football Association of Slovenia closely watches upon a whole range of youth national team selections. Despite the fact that the youngsters are slightly overshadowed by the A team, these youngsters are active during the entire year.

Slovenia is a small, but a very sporting country. Next to football, a lot of sports capture the interest of children, which is why the FAS tries to do everything to introduce the game to as many youngsters as possible. Because the base, from which the coaches of national team selections can pick players, is not very big, it's essential that the work of the coaches is at a high professional level, systematic and progress oriented.

The first selection of young footballers at the national team level is shaped in the U15 national team. The teams take part in preparations, international training matches and tournaments, all according to a pre-arranged work plan at the beginning of the year. In the scope of UEFA competitions, young teams play European championship qualifiers each year for the selections of U17, U19 and U21.

Each year youth national teams play about 50 to 60 international matches, which serve the young players to gain invaluable international experience. During the national team activities, these players get familiar with the demands of modern football and the training methods that can take them amongst the football elite. Football experts with the highest football education conduct the training processes of youth national teams, while the FA Slovenia helps with the logistics point of view to make sure the youngsters and coaches have the best possible conditions when fulfilling a pre-determined work programme.

International matches serve as a benchmark for youth players and their staff, to see how well they can do against players from more developed football countries. Slovenian teams match well with these, the proof being recent achievements, as the teams regularly perform well at the qualifiers. On top of that, in an effort to bring these young footballers closer to the public, Slovenia is a regular when it comes to the organization of the qualifying tournaments.

The activity and organisation of national football association is often rated through a prism of management and successes of national youth selections. The interest of FAS is to use international matches at youth level to shape players, who will be competent in representing the colours of the national team in the A selection. A series of great results and the World Cup qualification of A team, which consists mostly of players who went through FA's youth selection process, confirms that Slovenia is on the right track with the youth national football philosophy.