The strength of our youth development at Western Sydney Wanderers is currently on show once again with an incredible eight Red & Black representatives in the current Young Socceroos squad.
The strength of our youth development at Western Sydney Wanderers is currently on show once again with an incredible eight Red & Black representatives in the current Young Socceroos squad.
Jonathon Aspropotamitis, Steve Kuzmanovski, Jaushua Sotirio, Shayne D’Cunha, Alusine Fofanah, Daniel Alessi, Liam Youlley and Thomas Heward-Belle all in Paul Okon’s squad.
The eight players 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 this follows Ian Crook’s appointment as Technical Director of the Club’s academy which is about unearthing young talent and promoting them when deserved.
It’s going to be a very exciting time as the academy 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.
Young Socceroos v USA
2-1 loss with Youlley, Sotirio and Aspro starting. Fofanah, Kuzmanovski and Alessi came off the bench.
Young Socceroos v Mexico
Sunday 24 May
Young Socceroos v Brazil
Wednesday 27 March
