Four players from the Women’s Premier League have been selected for the upcoming Young Matildas camp set to take place this weekend as a result of their strong league form.
Regular names Beattie Goad (Bulleen Lions), Emma Checker (Ashburton United) and Monique Iannella (Bundoora United) will be joined for the first time by Maddie Stockdale (also Bulleen), who’s previously represented Australia at U-16 level.
The camp serves as a warm up to 2015 AFC U-19 Women’s Championship – to take place in August – which also doubles as the final qualification stage for the U-20’s Women’s World Cup in 2016.
Beginning today, the camp in Australia’s premier sports training facility – the AIS in Canberra – will stretch over the weekend and it’s expected that a squad for the tournament will be drafted after its conclusion.
Australia booked their place at the 2015 AFC U-19 Women’s Championship following a dominant display in the qualifiers in May in Vietnam.
The Young Matildas ended up on top of the table in their grouping with an astonishing 28 goals to nil leaving Hong Kong, Singapore and the host nation Vietnam in their wake.
The AFC tournament, to be played in Nanjing China starting August 18th, sees the Young Matilda’s in Group A along with Japan, Uzbekistan and host nation China.
Group B sees defending champions Korea Republic, 2013 runners-up DPR Korea, Thailand and Iran vying for the top two places.
The eight teams will play a one-round league, where each team in the group will play one match against every other team; the top three teams progressing to the U-20 Women’s World Cup next year.
The top two teams in each group (four teams in total) will qualify for the semi-finals where a 3rd/4th place playoff will decide the final nation to qualify for the world youth showpiece event.
This means that all four players will miss this weeks WPL fixtures; Bundoora are locked in a crunch match against South Melbourne, Ashburton versing the Senior NTC and Bulleen playing for their season against Caulfield United Cobras.
It’s believed that Matildas coach Alen Stajcic will also be in attendance to help run the rule on the girls’ performance.