Australian Youth Off To Jakata

It is good to see that the FFA are investing in the future. A Joey’s team will use the Asean Football Federation Youth Championship in Jakarta as a warm up for the AFC Under 16 Championships later in the year.

It is a growing sign of the money that the sport is finally seeing that the FFA can fund a trip like this. Five years ago the Joey’s might have enjoyed a extended training camp but a international tournament would have been unlikely.

It is an excellent opportunity for our youngest national players to get some solid international experience where the focus isn’t on the need to win every game. These players will be worth keeping an eye out for as we are likely to see many of them in the National Youth League next year (I believe they are too young for the league this year as all of them would have been under 16 at the beginning of the year).

Of course being able to watch these games is practically impossible and we are a long way from seeing SBS or Foxtel picking up the finals in October let alone these matches. The FFA though could and should start providing live text updates for these types of matches. We can only dream.....

Below is the list of players and the games they will be playing:
Kerem Bulut Striker NSW
Christopher Bush Midfielder ACT
Million Butshiire Striker WA
Joseph Costa Midfielder SA
Nathan Farrell Defender SA
Petar Franjic Defender VIC
Brendan Hamill Defender NSW
Benjamin Harrington Midfielder ACT
Kamal Ibrahim Midfielder VIC
Benjamin Kantarovski Midfielder NSW
Robert Kolak Goalkeeper NSW
Jared Lum Midfielder NSW
Chahine Noujaim Fullback SA
Trent Sainsbury Defender WA
Nikola Stanojevic Striker NSW
Lawrence Thomas Goalkeeper NSW
Marc Warren Left Back NSW
Tedros Yabio Midfielder VIC

The matches
July 9 Australia v Bahrain
July 11 Indonesia v Australia
July 13 Australia v Malaysia
July 15 Singapore v Australia
July 17 Australia BYE
July 19 3 v 4 1 v 2

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