Melbourne Heart FC trio Aziz Behich, Mate Dugandzic and Jason Hoffman have been named in the Australian Under 23 side for upcoming 2012 London Olympic qualifiers.
Melbourne Heart FC trio Aziz Behich, Mate Dugandzic and Jason Hoffman have been named in the Australian Under 23 side for upcoming 2012 London Olympic qualifiers.
Head Coach Aurelio Vidmar selected a 19-player squad for the upcoming qualifiers, which feature third round matches against Iraq and Uzbekistan and are set to play a pivotal role in determining whether the Green and Gold reach London.
Vidmar knows the importance of these upcoming two matches in qualification process.
“After drawing our opening match against the UAE we need to get a good result from these two matches to give us the best possible chance of qualifying for the Olympics.
“With injuries to a number of players we have used in the previous matches, we-ve selected a few new faces following our recent training camp in Sydney.
“It will be up to these players to take their opportunity and step up to the challenge ahead.
“We will have a short camp together in Qatar before the Iraq match to work on things and I-m confident that the boys are up to it,” concluded Vidmar
The Qantas Australian Under 23s will play Iraq in their next AFC Asian Qualifiers for the 2012 London Games match on Tuesday 22 November (Al Arabi Stadium, Doha, Qatar) and then Uzbekistan five days later at Parramatta Stadium in NSW.
The teams in each group of the third round of qualifying play in a home-and-away format from 21 September 2011, to 14 March 14, 2012, with the winner of each group directly qualifying for the London 2012 Olympic Games Football competition.
The three second-placed teams from the third round will clash in a playoff at a centralised venue from March 25 to 29, 2012, and the winners of this group will meet the representatives of CAF (Africa) for a berth in the 2012 London Olympic Games.
