Courtesy: OFC Web Site


Australia futsal builds for the future

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

In the lead-up to the OFC Futsal Championship Invitational oceaniafootball.com will present a rundown on each of the seven teams who will participate in the tournament at Auckland’s The Trusts Arena from 23-27 July.

Today we are bringing you the latest on the team sitting 27th in the futsal world rankings, Australia, as they arrive in Auckland hoping to give the side’s younger members a bit more international experience.

Australia participated in their sixth World Cup last year in Thailand with a history-making performance against Mexico earning the side their first win since 1992. Despite their elimination at the group stage, coach Steven Knight acknowledged the performance of his team after the tournament.

‘’This is a young team, and we have won a Futsal World Cup match for the first time since 1992. That's something," he said.

Australia have taken their futsal development to another level with the implementation of men’s and women’s leagues. On the men’s side, Dural Warriors have been crowned Australian champions and have qualified for the AFC Futsal Club Championship. Football Federation Australia has also developed youth programmes to bring futsal to the children in schools.

Between 1992 and 2004, Australia qualified for the Futsal World Cups through the Oceania Football Confederation where they won four OFC qualifiers in a row. However, FFA left OFC to join the Asian Football Confederation in 2006 and with that move came a higher level of competition. Australia haven’t performed as well as in they did in Oceania and their best result in the AFC qualifiers remains a fourth place in 2012.

Despite having left OFC, Australia have nurtured their ties with their former confederation and at the end of last year travelled to New Zealand to play the inaugural Trans Tasman Cup against New Zealand’s national futsal team where they completed a 3-0 clean sweep of the Futsal Whites, recording 3-0, 6-1 and 6-2 victories. A few weeks after those matches, they played the Solomon Islands in a friendly as both sides warmed up for the FIFA Futsal World Cup. Australia retained their dominance over the region as they beat the OFC reigning champions 7-0.

Australia are now coming to Auckland to participate at the OFC Futsal Championship Invitational from 23-27 July and share Group B with Tahiti, Vanuatu and the NZ Invitational team.






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