Sixteen players from Northern NSW have been selected to participate in the Tokyo Under-14 International Youth Football Tournament commencing May 2nd, 2019.
The squad consists of players from throughout the region and was selected on performances displayed at the NNSWF Talent ID Camp held at the Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility in January.
The side will be attending the tournament at the invitation of the Tokyo Government, who extended the invite to the NSW State Government.
Northern NSW Football Technical Advisor, Leo Bertos, who will be travelling along with the boys, believes this will be a valuable opportunity for the players.
“The Tokyo International Tournament will provide the players with the opportunity to test themselves against quality players and teams from many different environments from other parts of the world,” Bertos said.
“Many of the participating teams will have different approaches to playing the game and we are sure that this experience alone will be of enormous benefit to our players.
“The tournament will be extremely competitive as a number of professional clubs have been invited to attend. Last year we had the opportunity to play against FC Tokyo and the tournament winners Palmeiras which were both very difficult games yet fantastic experiences for the players.
“I am interested to see how the players we have selected manage to not only perform against a high level of opposition, but to also see individually how players manage themselves both on and off the field so that they can perform at their best for the heavy schedule of matches,” Bertos concluded.
The Northern NSW players will compete alongside International squads from Beijing, Berlin, Cairo, Jakarta, Moscow, Paris, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Buenos Aires and local Japanese teams at Tokyo’s Komazawa Olympic General Sports Ground.
The complete list of selected players can be found below:
