Joeys to face Brazil and USA

Australia’s U17 squad will participate in a friendly tournament where they will face Brazil and two United States squads.

The Nike International Friendlies is an annual competition staged by U.S. Soccer first staged in 2001 with national U17 teams invited to participate against the United States national teams.

This year’s event includes two U.S. squads comprising of all 40 players from U.S. Soccer’s Under 17 Men’s National Team Residency Program, as well as the Under 17 National Team from Brazil and Australia.

Joeys Head Coach Martyn Crook believes that the upcoming tournament will give the Qantas Joeys much needed international experience.

“The opportunity to play matches against the USA and Brazil will give the players a taste of two very different styles of football to what we they have experienced in Asia recently,” said Crook.

“We are expecting very tough opposition, especially against the likes of Brazil, which will provide much needed international experience for the players,” concluded Crook.

The Qantas Joeys play their first match of the tournament against USA-1 on Friday 5 December, and then face USA-2 on Sunday 7 December before playing their final match against Brazil on Monday 8 December.

The Qantas Joeys depart Australia today.

Joeys squad: Kerim Bulut (NSW), Chris Bush (ACT), Joseph Costa (SA), Julius Davies (WA), Stephen Domenici (ACT), Petar Franjic (VIC), Brendan Hamill (NSW), Kamal Ibrahim (VIC), Jared Lum (NSW), Joel Miller (SA), Chahine Noujaim (SA), Alex Pearson (WA), Trent Sainsbury (WA), Nikola Stanojevic (NSW), David Talevski (NSW), Lawrence Thomas (NSW), Marc Warren (NSW) and Bailey Wright (VIC).

Nike International Friendlies – USA 2008
December 5-8, 2008
Lancaster National Soccer Center, Lancaster, California, USA

Friday, December 5, 2008
USA-2 v Brazil, 10am PT (Sat 6/12/2008 5am AEDT)
USA-1 v Australia, 2pm PT (Sat 6/12/2008 9am AEDT)

Sunday, December 7, 2008
USA-2 v Australia, 10am PT (Mon 8/12/2008 5am AEDT)
USA-1 v Brazil, 2pm PT (Mon 8/12/2008 9am AEDT)

Monday, December 8, 2008
Brazil v Australia, 1pm PT (Tues 8/12/2008 8am AEDT)

Written by
Ben Willing