Soccer stars of the future
FIVE young Jewish footballers have been earmarked as potential future Socceroos after being selected in a developmental squad.
AJN‚ÄàSTAFF
FIVE young Jewish footballers have been earmarked as potential future Socceroos after being selected in a developmental squad.
Jonny Ress (under-9s), Reece Berelowitz and Samuel Shainfeld (under-10s), Jared Kadar (under-11s) and Jordan Koton (under-12s) caught the selectors’ eyes among 1500 other soccer players at a gruelling open selection, which began in September at the Football New South Wales’ (FNSW) headquarters at Valentine Park.
Forty-two playes were selected from each age group covering six regions. The Sydney East region covers Canterbury, Eastern Suburbs and St George.
They were chosen to take part in “Project 22” — a developmental squad with an eye on nurturing the 2022 World Cup generation.
The program is based on Football Federation Australia’s new curriculum for kids aged 9-14 and provides free training for 40 weeks a year.
The kids begin training immediately, with four sessions a week at Bexley North and competition against the other regions each weekend.
Football NSW CEO Michael Quarmby beamed that “for the first time in Australian football history, we finally have a long-term vision for the success of our sport”. The major project is being run in conjunction with the Johnny Warren Football Foundation, the NSW Institute of Sport and the Australian Institute of Sport.
Eight-year-old Ress arrived in Australia in December 2008 from Johannesburg, and won the 2009 under-8s grand final with Queens Park. Shainfeld and midfielder Berelowitz were part of Maccabi’s undefeated under-9A squad in 2009, and are part of Sutherland Shire’s futsal side, which recently made the state championships grand final, while also playing for Maccabi’s under-10s.
Kadar played for APIA Leichhardt’s undefeated premiership-winning under-10s in 2009, which included a taste of Champions of Champions and Kanga Cup football. He was also awarded a Football NSW training scholarship for 2009.
Koton has been honing his skills for two years in the Football Mundial soccer academy founded by Vince Colagiuri, based on European training methods.
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