The Young Socceroos U-20s Thread[R]

Yeah my bad. Costa Rica are a pretty good side actually. They were the runners up of 2011 CONCACAF U-20 championship (which is really really recent) and won the the thing in 2009. A young striker named Joel Campbell is the star of this current Costa Rica U-20 team and is the one to watch out for this upcoming tourney.
So yeah...I take that back. Costa Rica might actually be a scary side.

 

I have yet to see an Australian side get an easy WC group stage draw.

 

i'm really looking foward to this... There is a genuine reason to hope that this age group are going to be far better than those at olyroos age/2008 olympics age, at least in an attacking sense. I hope they can build on what were some promising performances at the u20 asian cup...

 

A lot of the Central American teams tend to have pretty decent youth teams so it'll be a tough gig. As for Ecuador they're always a bit hit or miss. We have the job ahead of us that's for sure. But we welcome the challenge. You're not going to find anything out about yourself by continually playing average teams.

 

Former Australia U'16's Slobodan Vulin and Milos Degenek were called up to the Serbia U17's today, are these kids talents or just randoms?

 

Really? I'd be really surprised if they committed themselves with Serbia, especially Degeneck who should be going to the U-17 World Cup with Australia. Vulin is a decent player also.

We've had a few players recently get call-ups to other national teams but most of them have rejected them so i'd be surprised if Degeneck who is a key player would do otherwise.

Anyways, Young Socceroos are going to Europe to play Germany in a friendly and then compete in a Tournament in Holland against sub club sides on the 24th

Squad:

Goalkeepers:
Mark Birighitti (Adelaide United), Matt Acton (Brisbane Roar)

Defenders:
Jason Davidson (Pacos de Ferreira, Portugal), Petar Franjic (Melbourne Victory), Sam Gallagher (Central Coast Mariners), Brendan Hamill (Melbourne Heart), Dylan McGowan (Hearts, Scotland), Trent Sainsbury (Central Coast Mariners), Marc Warren (Sheffield United, England)

Midfielders:
Mustafa Amini (Central Coast Mariners), Terry Antonis (Sydney FC), Jake Barker-Daish (Gold Coast United), Jason Geria (Brisbane Roar), Rhyan Grant (Sydney FC), Josip Konyit (Dinamo Zagreb), George Lambadaridis (Club Brugge, Belgium), Massimo Luongo (Tottenham Hotspur, England), Steven Lustica (Hadjuk Split, Croatia)

Forwards:
Kofi Danning (Free Agent), Matthew Fletcher (Sunderland, England), Corey Gameiro (Fulham, England), Bernie Ibini-Isei (Central Coast Mariners)

 

YS beat Germany 1-0, Danning scored the goal towards the end of the first half. Report says it was a decent game. Nice result for us leading up to the Teaborg(sp) tournament directly after.

Interesting that Versleijen only used one of the uncapped foreign based players in this match(Gameiro) but left the rest on the bench. I hope he's actually going to use them and not just leave them on the bench for the entire tournament leading to the U20 World Cup as what would of been the point of bringing them in, in the first place?

Disappointingly he also started Marc Warren ahead of Jason Davidson again. Davidson's been playing regularly and always has looked a class apart whenever he's played but Warren still seems to be getting picked

 

http://www.foxsports.com.au/footbal...-mexico-steps-up/story-e6frf423-1226075219057

Joeys cruise past Canada 2-1 in a pre-tournament friendly in Mexico, they play Uruguay within the next few days and then they play their group stage matches.

Judging by Versleijen's comments, he didn't rate Canada much and didn't think they were good enough to challenge us sufficiently in terms of judging were our own team is at, at the moment, so the Uruguay game will be a better barometer.

Olyroos also flogged Singapore today, 6-0. Scorers included Amini and Danning who only arrived back in Sydney this week from Europe and i guess again proving that the U-20's should really be taking those U-23 spots by the throat.

 

Team was: Dean Bouzanis; Matthew Foschini, Sebastian Ryall, Matthew Jurman, Aziz Behich; Kofi Danning, Oliver Bozanic (c), Aaron Mooy, Marko Jesic, Jason Hoffman, Rocco Visconte.

 

Amini's goal is on Kevin Air's twitter also, i'll try and find it again. Great build up to it and then boom! Back of the net

 

Very attacking lineup, I'm guessing something like:

-----------Bouzanis
Foschini--Ryall--Jurman---Behich
------------Jesic
-------Mooy------Bozanic
Danning-----Hoffman----Visconte

 

Mmm, Jesic is a striker/ winger lol, so i'd assume Bozanic would of anchored the midfield like he did against Japan and Visconte would of played slightly infront of him in the midfield triangle with Mooy, Jesic would of been at left wing like he did against Japan too

 

Gah, somehow I fused the two into Jesic: LW/CM and Bozanic: LW

 

Simply misunderstood was old Jan.

 

I love it how Amini just automatically assumes it's a personal vendetta behind his nonselection. It is a surprise though. Where's our firepower? To those following the "wunderkids" closer than me, who is doing well and stepping up? Who should we look out for?