Vidmar Names His Olyroo Squad

The 20-player squad will assemble in Sydney on Wednesday for a two day training camp before departing for Vietnam on Friday  where they will play matches against the Under 23 National teams of DPR Korea & Kuwait and also the Vietnam national team.

On the eve of his first training camp with his new group of players, Vidmar is excited about the upcoming campaign to qualify for the 2012 London Olympic games.

“This is our first opportunity to get this particular group of players together,” said Vidmar

“There is still a long way to go before our first official qualifier next June, but camps like these are an important part of the preparation process.

“The majority of the squad that will take us through the qualifiers will be Hyundai A-League based players, so we will need to work hard to ensure that the squad is the strongest one possible for the campaign.”

The match schedule for the Olyroos to qualify for 2012 London Olympic Games was recently announced by the Asian Football Confederation and will involve 35 teams from the region that will compete for three-and-a-half positions in the Men’s Olympics football tournament.

Round one of qualification will see the  22 lowest ranked teams in Asia play home-and-away playoffs with the winners qualifying for Round Two. The first leg of Round One will be played on February 23, 2011, while the return leg will be played on March 9, 2011.

The round one winners will join the 13 highest ranked teams, which will include Australia, in Round Two and 12 teams will make it to the Round Three after playing home-and-away playoffs on June 19, 2011, and June 23, 2011.

Round three will see the teams divided into three groups of four teams which will play each other in a home-and-away format. The winners of each group will qualify for the 2012 London Olympics.

All the second-placed teams from the three groups will play-off in a round robin format and the winner will then take on the Confederation of African Football (CAF) representative for a place at the 2012 Olympic Games.

The third round matches will be played on September 21, 2011, November 23, November 27, February 5, 2012, February 22 and March 14. The round robin matches between the second-placed teams will be played at a centralised venue from March 25 to 29, 2012.

Qantas Olyroos Squad

4 Nations Tournament – Vietnam

20-24 September 2010