Two Wanderers named in Australia U16 squad for Mongolia Mission

New Joeys Head Coach Peter Cklamovski has confirmed his 23-player squad for the forthcoming 2018 AFC U-16 Championship Qualifiers to be held in Mongolia.

Leonardo Belz and Dylan Craus from the Wanderers Academy have been included in the squad. 

Cklamovski’s squad in Mongolia features a mix of players who are currently aligned to Hyundai A-League clubs, National Premier Leagues (NPL) sides, national academies, as well as two – Diego Alonso and Tristan Hammond – who are currently based overseas.

Cklamovski said that finalising his squad for Mongolia was a difficult process, but believes that that demonstrates the depth that is coming through at youth level.

“There has been some tough decisions made to get to the final 23 and that’s a good sign of the depth starting to get created within this age group,” said Cklamovski.

“We have attempted to broaden the net in terms of player scouting and this process is in its infancy and it will continue to evolve and improve.

“We’ve had a great training camp at Valentine Park and now we travel to Mongolia and fine tune our preparations for AFC Qualifiers. The players are gaining an understanding of how we want to play as a team and it’s exciting to see the progress we are making in a short space of time.

“It’s imperative we capitalise on every minute available to us and maximise our time together to ensure we hit the ground running in what will be a competitive qualification stage,” Cklamovski concluded.

The Joeys will take on hosts Mongolia, as well as Cambodia and Vietnam in Ulaanbaatar from Wednesday 20 September through to Sunday 24 September 2017.

Should the Joeys side finish top of Group I in Mongolia his squad will book its place at the 2018 AFC U-16 Championships which will be held in Malaysia next year.

The five best group runners up will also make it to Malaysia for next year’s tournament, which will be held in September and October 2018.

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