Australia coach Ange Postecoglou had the courage to cross the bridge from the "Golden Generation" to the "Department of Youth" with his selections and won the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, with former A-League star Mat Ryan and Massimo Luongo among his best players. They are both just 22.
Graham Arnold built a championship-winning team around great young talent - including Ryan and Socceroos defender Trent Sainsbury - when he was coaching Central Coast Mariners and now he is displaying that same faith in youth at Sydney FC, with players like 17 year-old Alex Gersbach.
Look at any A-League club and the youngsters are coming through - too good for any enlightened coach to hold back.
The World Game has sifted through the talent and come up with a team of players under 23 years of age, which includes several teenagers. It looks exciting on paper and there are some fine young players to have missed out.
If this team was to actually get together and play, it would inevitably suffer to some degree from not having a few older heads in a competition for all ages, but it would be fun to watch and adventurous in the way it went about its business.
So here is the team, in a 4-3-3 formation:
GOALKEEPER: Jack Duncan (Perth, 21)
DEFENCE: Josh Risdon (Perth, 22), James Donachie (Brisbane, 21), Connor Chapman (Melbourne City, 20), Alex Gersbach (Sydney FC, 17),
MIDFIELD: Andrew Hoole (Newcastle, 21), Terry Antonis (Sydney FC, 21), Anthony Caceres (Central Coast, 22)
FORWARDS: Awer Mabil (Adelaide, 19), Radovan Pavicevic (Newcastle, 19), Connor Pain (Melbourne Victory, 21)
SUBSTITUTES: Paul Izzo (Adelaide, GK, 20), Nick Ansell (Melbourne Victory, 21), Daniel De Silva (Perth, 17), Dimitri Petratos (Brisbane, 22), Brandon Borrello (Brisbane, 19).
The selections do not include the long-term injured, which rules out Sydney FC striker Corey Gameiro. The 22 year-old scored twice in five A-League starts this season before a knee reconstruction rubbed him out for the remainder of the campaign.
There was no need to go scratching around for talent in any positions. Every position had genuine competition for places.
Among the players to miss out altogether are defenders Jason Geria (Victory, 21), Scott Galloway (Victory, 19), Corey Brown (Brisbane, 21), and Aaron Calver (Sydney FC, 19), midfielders Chris Naumoff (Sydney FC, 19), Hagi Gligor (Sydney FC, 18), Matthew Ridenton (Wellington, 18) and and attackers Tyler Boyd (Wellington, 20), James Virgili (Newcastle, 22) and George Blackwood (Sydney FC, 17).
Goalkeepers Duncan and Izzo have minimal A-League experience. They are behind two of the best and most experienced goalkeepers in Australia in Danny Vukovic and Eugene Galekovic respectively but are very promising. Duncan, in particular, is tipped for success overseas.
There is an extraordinary number of young players holding down key defensive positions in the A-League and Chapman appears the standout. He is getting back to his best form after a period of injury and illness.
Sainsbury and Matthew Spiranovic were the successful central defensive pairing for the Socceroos at the Asian Cup but expect Chapman to add to the depth of players from which Postecoglou can pick from in coming years.
Among the midfielders, Hoole has already been snapped up by Sydney FC from the Jets for next season.
Antonis was in the Asian Cup squad. He didn't get any game-time but that was just unfortunately the way it fell for him, with other midfielders such as Luongo excelling from the start.
Hoole, Antonis and Caceres can all either run the ball at opponents or split the defence with a pass.
Up front, Pain and Mabil are misery makers for opposition defenders with their speed on the ball. Mabil, in particular, is also very dangerous inside the penalty box. He's still got a lot of things to work on but the basic brilliance is there.
Pavicevic has only played three A-League games for the Jets, all off the bench. He scored his first goal in his second game and has just been signed to his first professional contract, for two years. He has come back from a badly broken arm sustained playing for the club's youth team last July.
We see young strikers burst on to the scene only for some of them to fade once the opposition gets a handle on them, but Pavicevic could be something special.
The bench includes Ansell to cover for the central defence and at full-back, De Silva and Petratos as attacking options coming out of the middle and Borrello as a back-up striker. The flexibility is there for the formation to change to a 4-4-2 or even 4-4-1-1.
De Silva is clearly well up to starting class in this line-up but he is also a potential game-breaker coming on against tired opponents and/or with his team in desperate need of a goal.
So that's the team but everyone fancies themselves as a talent spotter.
Who would you pick?
