Beach Soccer trials step up a gear in Sydney
The trials for the Australian Men’s Beach Soccer team continued at the weekend in Sydney, with coach Airton Andrioli happy with what he saw from the trialists on show.
Four players from the Australian team that went to the 2005 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Brazil - Jim Bakis, Steve Karavatakis, George Souris and goalkeeper Stacey Alogdellis - attended the trials at Sydney-s Maroubra Beach.
Andrioli will look at these players again, along with former NSL player Ivo De Jesus, plus several others who impressed during the trial session.
Brazilian Andrioli, a Football Development Officer with Football Federation South Australia, is scouring the country over the next month, looking for players to make up a potential 24-man training squad that will contest the Asian Championships later this year.
He will be in Newcastle this upcoming weekend, with further trials planned for Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane. Melbourne trials were conducted several weeks ago.
The FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup will be held in Dubai, UAE in November 2009.
Australia played at the inaugural World Cup tournament in 2005 in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, although the invitation came late and was a hastily put together team of former National Soccer League players, with Adrian Santrac as coach and Alex Tobin as the tour leader.
Australia was beaten in both its group games, although not disgraced, losing 5-1 to eventual tournament winners France and 3-1 to Argentina.
Brazil has won the tournament the past three years.
This is the first time since then that Australia is attempting to get a berth at the tournament and Andrioli is determined to get the team prepared accordingly for the Asian Championships.
A full interview with Andrioli will follow shortly.