FFA State Institute Challenge to kick-off

The second annual FFA State Institute Challenge kicks-off at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra this week with nine teams from State Institutes and Training Centres from around the country lining up for an intense week of football with a few innovations added to promote the new National Football Curriculum.

The second annual FFA State Institute Challenge kicks-off at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra this week with nine teams from State Institutes and Training Centres from around the country lining up for an intense week of football with a few innovations added to promote the new National Football Curriculum.

FFA National Technical Director Han Berger, believes that the FFA State Institute Challenge plays an important part within National Football Curriculum and, in particular, to the National Talented Player Pathway.

“As we outlined in the National Football Curriculum, what we are looking for now is a certain type player that has good technical skill and understands the principles and guidelines of the New National Football Curriculum,” said Berger on the eve of the tournament.

“This year we will trialling a number of innovations for the State Institute Challenge to assess how the various teams have adopted the new National Football Curriculum that we began implementing last year ,”

“It must be understood that this event is a development tournament, and although the results count, the way a team plays is more important than the final score. To this end teams can collect bonus points for the quality of their technical performance, as judged by the FFA Technical Committee, which will contribute to their overall points.

“If these innovations are successful we will be looking to use them at this year-s FFA National Youth Championships for Boys and Girls.

“We will also be holding a coaches seminar during the week to monitor how the implementation of the National Curriculum is progressing,” concluded Berger

All the players involved in the FFA State Institute Challenge are aged between 14-17 years of age and will be closely monitored by the an FFA Technical Committee that includes Han Berger (National Technical Director), Alistair Edwards (Assistant National Technical Director), Kelly Cross (National Coach Education Manager), Jan Versleijen (AIS Head Coach) and Gary van Egmond (AIS Senior Assistant Coach).

The FFA Technical Committee, in conjunction with the participating coaches, will assess the technical performance of each team during the tournament in relation to their adoption of the principles of the National Football Curriculum which was launched last year.

As an added incentive to the participating teams, apart from accumulating points in the traditional manner for wins and draws, the FFA Technical Committee will award daily bonus points and, at the end of the tournament, an extra 5,3 or 1 bonus points based on the manner in which the teams played throughout the week.

Another innovation will be the selection of an “Allstar” team that will play the winning team at the end of the week. The selection of players in the Allstar team will involve coaches nominating a defender, midfielder and attacker from their opposition after each match who will then be considered by the FFA Technical Committee. Individual awards will also be presented to outstanding players within positional groups.

FFA STATE INSTITUTE CHALLENGE - PLAYING SQUADS AIS, CANBERRA 25-30 JANUARY 2010

ACT Academy of Sport - (ACTAS): Jas Abarquez, Daniel Barac, Izach Clements, Jakob Cole, Ilija Cotric, Aaron Evans, James Field, Jack Green, Zac Karkin, Nathen Megic, Goran Mukevski, Conor Nolan, Alex Popovic, Milan Popovic, Keighan Ramirez-Hodgson, Evan Ridley, Roko Strika, Nikola Taneski, Hristijan Tanoski, Jason Ugrinic, Jakob Williams Coach: Mike Milovanovic

Football Federation Victoria National Training Centre - (FFV-NTC): Steve Ancevski, Nicholas Ansell, John Buceto, David Cardamone, Daniel Chaabani, Christopher Cristaldo, Jack Dover, Liam Francis, Mason Interlandi, Iqbal Jawadi, James Karvelis, Quinn McDonald, Andrew Mullett, Robert Naumoski, Phillip Petreski, Peter Skapetis, Ali Turgut, Danny Waddup, Coach: Ian Greener

New South Wales Institute of Sport (Northern) - (NNSWIS): Patrick Brown, Dominic Bizzarri, Patrick Coelho, Ryan Cole, Reece Coleman, Matthew Comerford, Jesse Cook, Michael Finlayson, Blake Green, Alexander Kantarovski, Cody Lucas, Harrison Maguire, Dylan Murphy, Jarrod Olivieri, Luke Remington, Terry Surjan, Abe Wheelhouse Coach: Wayne O-Sullivan

New South Wales Institute of Sport (Central) - (NSWIS): Samuel Chapple, Daniel DiRuocco, Steven Drewery, Dolor Edosomwan, Stevan Ilic, Sam Kagaras, Jayden Koulizakis, Jake McGine, Hayden Morton, Michael Neill, Daniel Nizic, Cameron Solevski, Fabian Sosa, Andreas Vais, Dillon Vorster, Marco Vukovic, Coach: Jean Paul de Marigny

Northern Territory - (NT): Andre Borges-Nunes, Dylan Elford, Andres Pascoe, Geordie Lelliott, Danny Ly, Clancy McLeod, John Maillis, Oliver Mariotti-Hazeldine, Mathew McRoberts, Chris Mitchell, Karim Moummar, Adam Perakovic, Ben Quinn, Michael Reid, Munya Ruparanganda, Keelan Scott, Alex Turner, Afif Whykes, Coach: Daymon Port

Queensland Academy of Sport - (QAS): Ross Archibald, Mitch Cooper, Scot Coulson, Sam Cronin, Nicholas Ford, Jayden Liddicoat, Ben Litfin, Shane Lubbe, Joshua Riis, Peter Roditis, Tremayne Sadler, Jakob Smith, Matthew Stein, Tosh Togatia, Kayne Varga, Kwame Yeboah, Coach: David Abela

South Australian Institute of Sport - (SASI): Brandon Borello, Stefan Cali, Jordan Elsey, Ben Garuccio , Jake Halliday, Shaun Harvey, George Hatzipanagiotis, Jordan Kallios, Dion Kirk, Ryan Kitto, Dominic Lloyd, Jacob Melling, Giorgio Pantelis, Paul Radice, John Solari, Angelo Varricchio, Alan Welsh, Jacob Williams, Coach: Tony Vidmar

Tasmanian Institute of Sport - (TIS): Will Abbot, Brady Cronk, Jesse Curran, Jamie De Smitt, Maxime Devine, Declan Foley, Hugh Foley, Nick Green, Sam Hamilton, Lucas Hill, James Ince, Eli Luttmer, David McLung, Nick Mearns, Tristan Prendegast, Jeremy Walker, Coach: Dean May

Football West: Nick Ambrogio, Alex Castiello, Jacob Collard, Kieran Colwell, Savo Cubrilo, Matthew Davies, Daniel Dols, Jordan Franken, Scott Galloway, Byron Hudson, Tom King, Jeese Makarounas, Joseph Moseray, Sahr Musa, Albert Ngeyo, Harry O'Brien, Brandon O'Neill, Adrian Petroski, Shane Pickering, Luke Radonich, Slobodan Vulin, Riley Woodcock, Coach: Kenny Lowe