NSW well represented at Tokyo Tournament
An Under 14 NSW combined team recently participated in the Tokyo International Youth Football Tournament held at the impressive Komazawa Olympic Park General Sports Ground as the team of 16 included eleven players from Football NSW’s Institute side and five from Northern NSW.
NSW finished tenth in what was a very competitive tournament and one that featured a number of high profile clubs such as Argentina’s Boca Juniors, Brazil’s Corinthians, Russia’s Chertanovo, German club Berlin along with Japanese clubs FC Tokyo and Tokyo Verdy and eventual winners Egyptian side Cairo to name a few.
NSW Combined Coach Chris Keane used this tournament as an ideal opportunity to further develop his young footballers in what is recognised as one of the world’s most renowned tournaments as some of the best young football teams and players travelled from all parts of the world to participate in.
The squad departed for Tokyo on Thursday 30th of April where they visited the Suzugamori Junior High School taking in the sights and sounds of the Japanese culture and also used this day as a warm up before their opening match the following day.
The opening game saw the NSW combined side tackle Russian outfit Chertanovo. The game ended in the Russians favour 1-0 but were unlucky not to have picked up a point from this especially in the dying stages of the match where a number of guilt edged chances weren’t converted.
The second lot of matches saw the side defeat Japanese outfit Fukushima thanks to goals from Adrian Neoklis and Calem Nieuwenhof which clinched the team’s first win in Japan however that same day, their final match saw them lose to Korean side Seoul 2-0.
Sunday 3rd of May saw Keane’s team battle it against German outfit Berlin where they came out 2-1 victors thanks to goals from Jackson Mortimer and Neoklis who grabbed his second of the tournament.
The NSW Combined side were playing for ninth and tenth spot of the tournament and their final match was against Jakarta where they lost 1-0 ending their run
Results
Match 1 – 1-0 loss v Chertanovo (Russia)
Match 2 – 2-0 win v Fukushima (Japan)
Match 3 – 2-0 loss v Seoul (Korea)
Match 4 – 2-1 win v Berlin (Germany)
Match 5 – 1-0 loss v Jakarta (Indonesia)
Under 14 NSW combined squad
1 Noah James NNSWF
2 Bailey Geddes FNSW
3 Thomas Aquilina FNSW
4 Mitchell Mattison FNSW
5 Liam McDonald NNSWF
6 Kaleb Cox NNSWF
7 Harry McCarthy FNSW
8 Calem Nieuwenhof FNSW
9 Jackson Mortimer FNSW
10 Yousef Sawalha FNSW
11 Adrian Neokilis FNSW
12 Ryan Goodhew NNSWF
13 Noah Pagden FNSW
14 Jake Hollman FNSW
15 Samuel Donnellan NNSWF
16 Marley Beeston FNSW
