Subway Olyroos’ Head Coach, Tony Vidmar has named an extended 24-man squad for a series of upcoming friendlies during the November FIFA Men’s International Window to be held in Saudi Arabia.
Among the squad names is Greek Australian soccer star Nectarios Triantis, who is currently playing for Sunderland AFC.
The friendlies – scheduled for Friday, 17 November (Qatar) and Tuesday, 21 November (Saudi Arabia) – will be played at Prince Saud Bin Jalawi Stadium, providing Vidmar’s squad with the invaluable opportunity to spend time together as a group while facing quality opposition.
“We’ve secured games against teams who will provide a different challenge to those we’ve recently faced, in very similar conditions to what we’ll see in Doha next year – in terms of acclimatising the squad it ticks several boxes,” Vidmar said.
“There are four available matches to prepare ahead of our first Asian Cup group game, so every part of our preparation needs to be geared towards that, ensuring we can be at our best and effectively execute our plans on the pitch.”
Vidmar’s squad also features several returning faces from the team that successfully secured AFC U-23 Asian Cup™ Qatar 2024 qualification, including Calem Nieuwenhof (Heart of Midlothian FC) and Patrick Yazbek (Viking FK).
The Subway Olyroos are one of 16 teams who have qualified for the AFC U23 Asian CupTM Qatar 2024. Should they finish in the top three they will automatically qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics as the AFC representatives, while the fourth-best team will play an AFC-CAF play-off match for the final qualification spot.
Source: Football Australia.
