More than 200 young footballers from throughout the state descended on Valentine Sports Park (VSP) this week as Football NSW played host to the FFA’s Under 15 Talent Identification Tournament.
Participants included teams from the various metropolitan and regional Talent Support Program hubs, HAL academies, Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers, Central Coast Mariners and Newcastle Jets as well as special guests, Canberra United and a composite team made up of Future Matildas and current Matildas preparing for the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France.
Trevor Morgan, Head Coach of the Under 17’s National Team, the Joeys, said of the event.
“This week’s tournament brings together talented footballers from all over the state and is vitally important in giving us a chance to benchmark what we have at hand whilst also providing a valuable learning opportunity for the players”.
Morgan continued “The players will experience high quality and high intensity games in an environment that mirrors those of AFC tournaments and will allow the best players to compete, learn and hopefully compete at a higher level. I’m very excited by the opportunity to observe the best players in this age group from NSW and ACT over the next couple of days.”
Warren Grieve, Football NSW’s Technical Director, Men’s & Boys stated.
“We are committed to supporting Football Federation Australia and the National Teams Unit in the conduct of these mini tournaments so as to provide our best young players the opportunity to be in shop window of Trevor and his team of national selectors. We will ensure more of these events take place in preparation for the U17 World Cup”.
At the end of the first round of games on Day One of the Tournament, the Technical Study Group comprising FFA and Football NSW Technical Staff and a number of NPL Technical Directors selected a group of players born 2004 to take part in a further series of games on Wednesday 24 April with the possibility of inclusion in an Under 15’s National Team camp to be conducted in July.
The players listed below need to be in attendance by 9.00am, meeting in change room 7 & 8:
Game 1 – Kick Off 10.30am on VSP 1
| Team 1 | Team/TSP Region | v | Team 2 | Team/TSP Region |
| Sammy Salcedo-Rose | TSP East | Beau Ward | TSP Far South | |
| Lachlan MacDonald | TSP Far South | Luke Raso | TSP South | |
| Max Bailey | Newcastle Jets FC | Joshua Lazzaro | TSP East | |
| Thomas Stobierski | Western Sydney | Brae Ovens | Sydney FC | |
| Aiden Mostofi | Sydney FC | Jeremy Netto | Western Sydney | |
| Will Arnold | Central Coast Mariners | Jake Girdwood-Reich | Sydney FC | |
| Alessandro Lopane | Western Sydney | Flynn Madden | TSP Far South | |
| Daniel Helweh | TSP South | Clayton Taylor | Sydney FC | |
| Adrian Segicic | Sydney FC | Benjamin Wass | Western Sydney | |
| Muhamad Hamdan | TSP East | Bret Sibanda | Central Coast Mariners | |
| Jacob Krkovski | TSP Far South | Julien Vitale | TSP Far North | |
| Sam Hilton | TSP North/West | Julian Monge | Western Sydney | |
| Marko Jadric | ACT | Mason Donadel | Country NSW |
Game 2 – Kick Off 12.00pm on VSP 1
| Team 3 | Team/TSP Region | v | Team 4 | Team/TSP Region |
| Josip Orlovic | TSP East | Griffin Barry | Western Sydney | |
| Nicholas Panuccio | Western Sydney | Vasilas Kastoumis | Western Sydney | |
| Alexander Trajanovski | TSP South | Jesse Stokes | TSP North/West | |
| Julian Dal Bianco | Western Sydney | Preston Lorusso | Central Coast Mariners | |
| Davin Fattore | Central Coast Mariners | Paulo Pusateri | Sydney FC | |
| Matthew Scarcella | Western Sydney | Dylan Sacco | TSP South | |
| Luke Niewenhof | Sydney FC | Adam Filippone | TSP South | |
| Brohden Souris | TSP Far South | Zac Waddell | Central Coast Mariners | |
| Alex Denmead | Western Sydney | Lachlan West | Newcastle Jets FC | |
| Thomas Lopez | TSP South | Jasper Webber | Western Sydney | |
| Jason Cakovski | Western Sydney | Andre Jugovac | ACT | |
| Luka Smyth | Sydney FC | Daunte Cervo | ACT | |
| Jagger Wholert | Newcastle Jets FC | Federico Gagliano | Sydney FC |
