Adelaide United’s array of teenage stars are leading the charge for the Reds after knocking off the A-League Men champions and premiers in consecutive weeks.
United cruised past Central Coast Mariners 3-0 in the opening round of the season before thumping Melbourne City 6-0 at Coopers Stadium on Sunday, making it a perfect start to their campaign.
On the back of a spectacular breakout season, 17-year-old Nestory Irankunda has played a starring role, starting in both matches and stealing the show against City with a glorious 25-metre free kick to break the deadlock.
The 19-year-old Bernardo then came off the bench and bagged a brace, while also providing a delightful backheel assist for fellow substitute, 18 year-old Musa Toure, who scored his maiden A-League goal.
Panashe Madanha (19) and Jonny Yull (18) have also started both matches while Guiseppe Bovalina (18) made his A-League debut against City after coming on as a substitute.
Reds coach Carl Veart said he has always given youth a chance and never more so than this season.
“It’s our blueprint since I’ve came here,” he said.
“Yes, we’ve copped a little bit of criticism this off season because we didn’t really sign or bring players in, but we wanted to make sure we kept giving those opportunities to the young players.
“We’ve got a great group at the moment. We saw some of them tonight and there’s still some more that are waiting to get their chances as well.
“I’ve always said young players will surprise you if given the opportunity and if they can see they’re going to get rewarded for the work, then they will lift and surprise people.”
Veart is hopeful all his young stars will get to test themselves abroad eventually, but he's a big believer in providing a solid platform at the Reds first.
Last season, Irankunda was limited to appearances off the bench despite calls for him to start after his scintillating cameos and an ever-growing highlights reel.
Veart resisted the urge, but with the departure of Craig Goodwin, the way has been paved for Irankunda to play a bigger role this season and so far he has excelled.
And judging by the Reds' opening two matches, there appears to be a few more talented teenagers taking advantage of Veart’s faith in youth.
“We want our young players, we want Nestor to go on and play in the big leagues in Europe,” Veart said.
“We want Musa, we want Bernardo, we want Jonny, Panache; we can keep naming all the kids. We want them all to get a grounding here; we don’t want them to go too early.
“I think we’ve seen that too many times with young players, we’ve seen them go too early to leagues that are at a higher level.
“We’ve signed a lot of our younger players to two, three-year deals so we can make sure we give them 50, 60, 70 games before we send them off to a club where they can be confident in what they do and achieve at that next level.”
