The Dural Warriors' Men's team are very proud and privileged to be able to represent Australian futsal in the AFC Club Championship Qualifiers.
FNSW Premier League and Hummel F League Champions, Dural Warriors' Men' team are very proud and privileged to be able to represent Australian futsal in the AFC Club Championship Qualifiers. This is the Dural Warriors' first foray into the Asian club scene and there is an air of excitement about competing in Malaysia against some of the best club sides in East Asia and South East Asia.
The ultimate aim for the team is to gain qualification into the finals to be played in Nagoya in Japan in late August. Dural Warriors will be competing against some powerful and wealthy clubs who have recruited international players into their squads. While the team will be represented solely by Aussie grown talent, Dural is confident that it can be competitive in the games and must finish in the top 3 places to qualify.
The team has a small core of players with international experience but at the same time 8 players in the squad are 21 years of age or under. The philosophy at Dural has always been to give young players opportunities. Dural Warriors will be looking to the experienced players to help guide the youngsters, but the team is also very confident that every player will step up to the mark and make a substantial contribution.
Dural Warriors have been drawn against the Indonesian Champions, Pelindo FC, and Vietnamese Champions, Thai Son Nam. Team Coach Robert Varela said "being a group of only 3 teams, we cannot afford any slip ups if we want to move into the semi-finals and beyond, the pressure will be on from the start and we must achieve positive results from game one". The other pool include the Chinese champions, Shenzhen Nanling, Thai champions, GH Bank, Philippines champions, Pasargad FC, and Taiwan champions, Tainan City.
The delegation will arrive in Malaysia very early in the morning of April 9th and have a game scheduled against the Malaysian National team later that night.
The boys have been working hard on their fitness, and as the date approaches the training has been ramped up. Dural will be looking for teams to have practice games against, under international rules conditions, at Dural, before departure, and would welcome futsal teams to contact them. Supporters wishing to travel to Malaysia are also welcome.
Thanks to sponsorship from JOMA, Toshiba and FutsalOz, the cost for the participants have been reduced. Thanks also to FFA and Ross Anderson and Joel Freeme for their help and kind donations of some outstanding Socceroos memorabilia items that will be used to raise funds.
Dural Warriors team Players Tobias Seeto Daine Merrin Gregory Giovenali Alastair Bruce Nicholas Starr Blake Rosier Nathan Niski Jarrod Basger Daniel Codrington Adam Bradley James Brunacci Christopher Polkinghorne Zach Caruana Michael Figueira