Six Wanderers selected in Young Socceroos

Our vision for the future has taken a big step forward with six Wanderers selected for the Young Socceroos upcoming tour, double the amount of players than any other club.

Steve Kuzmanovski, Shayne D’Cunha, Alusine Fofanah, Daniel Alessi, Thomas Heward-Belle and Liam Youlley will all join Paul Okon’s squad.
 
The six played selected is a justification of our objective to find young talent and put them into the toughest competition possible. In the Foxtel Youth League we establish a training program parallel to the first team to expose them to a higher level of football with a view to seeing who can step up.
 
In simple terms we’re in search of someone who can be a top player for the first team by the time they’re 19 or 20.
 
We’re making important steps in the right direction and sending a message that when the Club’s academy starts we’re very serious about unearthing young talent and promoting them when deserved.
 
It’s going to be a very exciting time for the Wanderers soon as we begin an academy which will give us all age groups right through from U12s in the NPL.
 
There’s going to be tremendous developments there because we will set up an entire coaching and scouting network that will be broader in the younger years, allowing us to keep casting our net as wide as we can across Western Sydney to unearth the best talent which are age eligible for us and stick to our philosophy.
 
We will have more people out there looking for talent and we’ll take lessons we’ve learnt from the past three seasons and make small modifications to the program.
 
This season every contracted player in the NYL team trained with the first team several times and when the academy happens the same knock-on effect will be there too. Where there is a young talent they will be promoted.
 
The Young Socceroos will face New Zealand at Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland on Sunday 3 May and then Qatar at the same venue on Thursday 7 May. They will then meet Panama at the Waikato Stadium, Hamilton on Sunday 10 May before their final match of the series against Ghana on Wednesday 13 May at the same venue.
 

Young Socceroos Squad – International Friendly Series 

Fixture Schedule