is Milislav POPOVIC any relation ?

It looks like he is a Serbian striker who has played for their under 19 team once after growing up in Brisbane.

There was a Popovic who spent about five minutes with Lazio youth recently while Ikon was there, but I'm not sure if that was him.

Makes it hard when there are only about half a dozen first and last names from that part of the world apiece.

This one is now a Köln U23. Patchy season with bench appearances, a few starts but mostly out of the squad with little injuries. 

I find youth football really interesting. Looking at the clubs they are involved in, its quite impressive if it was all senior teams. If only youth form related to senior level. 

I think it also points out there are plenty of aussies still cutting their path in europe. The question is, once they leave their academies, where should they go? Fair few of these players potentially would be very close if not starting for a league sides. Or is it better for them to stick it out in europe training. 

When you think about someone like mooy stuck it out in europe for a bit, but wasn't a couple of seasons in the aleague that it springboard him to a championship side and probably the EPL next year. 

Then you have the whole golden generation argument. People like culina that toiled away for years to eventually being in part of a top side.

Also the those birthdates make me feel very old. 

No Gethin Jones? was hoping he would get a call up either for this or the socceroos. I guess he will stay with Wales. shame.

he is gunning for the welsh team.  we would have to offer him a full NT spot to get him back to our camp.

Surely Ange did just that with this two wcq considering our lack of right backs. I reckon he's still holding out for Wales before he commits.

maybe.  maybe ange doesnt think he's worth a call up.  maybe jones just doesnt want to play for aus.  

Jones is Welsh - fair play, he should play where his heart is.

Some potential in here, but also a lot of youth teamers.

Old article , but was being watched by Bayern and BVB at one point

http://www.fussballtransfers.com/bundesliga/bvb-bayern-co-jagen-shootingstar-der-junioren-bundesliga_59929

Will be interesting

"Australian and Finn for the U21
The U21 of the 1. FC Cologne has committed Milislav Popovic and Fredrik Lassas for the return series.
Popovic is an Australian and played for the TSV Havelse. There, the 18-year-old striker scored ten goals in 14 games in the A-Junior-League North / Northeast and came four times in the regional league north (one goal)."

http://www.reviersport.de/321356---1-fc-koeln-australier-finne-fuer-u21.html

I feel like there's quite a few missing from Aussies Abroad but can't quite work out the rest from the ones already mentioned above 🤔

Beadling and Elder. Elder might be sitting out with a small injury. 

Deni Juric, the younger brother of Socceroos striker Tomi, selected for Olyroos camp in Spain

STRIKER Deni Juric, the younger brother of Socceroos ‘number nine’ Tomi Juric, headlines the fresh batch of overseas talents called up to an overseas youth camp.

An Australian development squad will play against Finland and Austria’s Under 21s during the nine-day Spain camp under Josep Gombau, which will be tracked by Ange Postecoglou who will be in Socceroos camp.

Attacker Chris Ikonimidis and left-back Alex Gersbach are the only senior capped players in the squad, while Stefan Mauk has made a Socceroos squad.

Defenders Cameron Burgess and Thomas Deng, midfielders Anthony Kalik, Jordan Lyden and Aiden O’Neill and forward Awer Mabil are among the few with first-team experience in Europe.


Former Melbourne Victory defender Thomas Deng, now at PSV Eindhoven, has been named in the Socceroos development squad.
Juric and Ajdin Hrustic are among those on the verge of a breakthrough, while Newcastle Jets defender Nicholas Cowburn is the only A-League player in the squad, with several clubs believed to have blocked call ups.

Former Melbourne Victory midfielder Sebastian Pasquali, now with Ajax Amsterdam, and Barnsley left-back Callum Elder were ruled out through injury.

“A lot of players in this squad we haven’t worked with before so this camp allows us to bring them in and expose them to the national team setup and see the levels they are at and how they are tracking,” Gombau said.

“This is not just an Under 23 squad, we are also bringing in some younger players and the main objective is to get to know all of them and see how they can fit into our system and bring them under the national team umbrella.

“There is a five year gap between the oldest and youngest players coming into this camp so the main objective is to know these players and see if they can become potential Socceroos for the future.”

The 20-28 March camp will be held in Murcia.

SOCCEROOS DEVELOPMENT SQUAD

Panos Armenakas (Udinese, Italy, Age: 18), Jake Brimmer (Liverpool, England - 18), Cameron Burgess (Bury, England - 21), Nicholas Cowburn (Newcastle Jets, Australia - 22), Thomas Deng (PSV Eindhoven, Netherlands - 19), Alex Gersbach (Rosenborg, Norway - 19), Thomas Glover (Tottenham, England - 19), Jordan Holmes (Eastbourne Borough, England - 19), Ajdin Hrustic (Groningen FC, Netherlands - 20), Chris Ikonomidis (AGF, Denmark - 21), Deni Juric (Hajduk Split, Croatia - 19), Anthony Kalik (Hajduk Split, Croatia - 19), Josh Laws (Fortuna Dusseldorf, Germany - 19), Jordan Lyden (Aston Villa, England - 21), Awer Mabil (Esjberg, Denmark - 21), Stefan Mauk (NEC, Netherlands - 21), Ashley Maynard-Brewer (Charlton Athletic, England - 17), Danijel Nizic (Morecambe, England - 21), Aiden O’Neill (Oldham Athletic, England - 18), Con Ouzonidis (Everton, England - 17), Milislav Popovic (FC Koln, Germany - 20), Thomas Prinsen (PEC Zwolle, Netherlands - 17).


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/football/deni-juric-the-younger-brother-of-socceroos-striker-tomi-selected-for-olyroos-camp-in-spain/news-story/c3fb827ec291f3913266a609b3f872ec

Now I see at the end of the article Elder and Pasquali are injured. It's an exciting group.

Reno Piscopo?

John Roberts was useless in the last u17 AFC championship.

I like this too. Hopefully John Roberts and Lachlan Brook can make it next year (as 17 year olds). More strikers please.

Najjarine for WSW is also a promising young talent another one that did well for the Joeys last year.

Maybe this is just O/S based. Which might explain those omissions

yup.  they did an australian one not long ago. 

Very interesting that Nicholas Cowburn gets picked for this Euro camp and he is the only Australian based member of the squad. He wad chosen for the Aussie based camp the first time last month in Gosford.  Was he that impressive to the staff or did he pull out injured last time for Josep wanting to have another look at him in Spain? 

Nick is a great footballer and a wonderful human being.

If he gets the right coaching I can see him being so vital for the National Team. 

Clearly Josep/Ange/etc see similar in him.

It certainly sounds like he was that impressive that they wanna see him amongst the Euro boys as well - good luck to him if that's the case

They already had a camp in Gosford.
No need to send them to Europe

No DeSilva , and only one player from Aus , got to be the weirdest camp / selection policy ever , most of these overseas players are playing in second or third string u19s and u21 sides .
Please do some checks or scouting Ffa

If thats the best talent we have got outside of australia we could be in some trouble. Apart from Mabil, Gersbach and Mauk the rest are not involved in first team football, those guys cant afford to be playing academy football by those ages.

A bunch of them are still in their teens. It's par for the course.

They have camps where it's local-based, and this camp seems to be for the Euro-based.

What exactly is wrong with doing that?

Maybe a few checks on where some of these lads are playing would help , please don't shoot the messenger just do a little research and all will be revealed .
That's all

Not exactly. It's rather speculative. It's not the squad for a tournament, is it now?

There's nothing whatsoever wrong with the FFA liaising with those who are playing in Europe. It's only by getting them into camp that Gombau (and the FFA) will have any kind of idea as to what cards they have.

It says in the Deni Juric article that A-league clubs are believed to have blocked call up for their players, so it seems Cowburn was the only one given release by Newcastle.

He hasn't played for a while for us, seemingly because our coach has chosen others, so that would make sense. 

Cleur playing at Virtus Entella Primavera is the first absentee I thought of. Playing full games in a team sitting 4th behind Roma in their group and also in the Primavera cup final. He is a right back and made the bench for a Serie B game early in the season.

Daniel Arzani? Lucas Derrick? The latter was Australia's best at the U17 World Cup which they last competed in, imo.

They picked a Jets player. I think it is their ages (too young).

Some good players in there its now putting a decent team together to have a crack against the best in Asia now.

@barca

Is the afghani kid from Beenleigh any good?

who is this?

I looked it up

http://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/logan/standout-junior-soccer-player-rahmat-akbari-tells-how-the-sport-helped-him-settle-in-australia/news-story/6fa6d4dde4b948ee384bbe8353ed6eca

i didnt recall him but the others you mentioned for me stood out more.

The future's fine. We only need about 4 of these to make it into the Socceroos every 4 years, but 2 of those must become real stars like Kewell, Cahill, Schwarzer, Bresciano level.

Hope these games are streamed! Really keen to see some of these kids we've been reading about in action.

I hope so as well, but I'm not holding my breath.

Is there going to be a second camp? All these players are from pretty much the first half of the alphabet. This squad stops at P.
Where are all the Q to Z's of which surely there would be many.
Did Josep just start at A and got to P and went woah, that's 22, that's plenty???
Could this just be a really bizarre, spooky lack of depth amongst young Aussie kids mostly getting a shot to play football in Europe without much potential to play for their country? 
Is this the only squad in world football whose players surnames only come from the first 16 letters of the alphabet? I would think yes.
Kooky.

I don't think so... we still have
Fran Karacic   Lokomotiva Zagreb
Jacob Eliopolous   APOEL
Reno Piscopo   Torino
Gab Cleur     Virtus Entella
Dylan Ryan    Willem II
Antonis Martis    FC Midtylland
Chris Marques      Nottingham Forest
Dom Kurasik       Brentford
Seb Pasquali        Ajaz
Dan Bouman           Groningen
Lyndon Dykes         Queen of the South
Tom Beadling          Bury
James Georgaklis       Swindon Town
Jasko Keranovic           West Brom

And a lot more who would qualify for this, so actually I'm pretty convinced that we don't have a depth problem in Europe at the moment. only other problem is the lack of game time these guys are getting

^ awesome list but that's even more bizarre! It's only Dylan Ryan who would be ruled out through Josep's surname rule. All those others would qualify due to having surnames beginning with A to P. 
Have you got a list of all our talented persecuted kids with the wrong surnames??

I think you're looking into it a little too much with the surnames, I honestly think this is genuinely the best available squad he could've come up with considering, the ability to release key players. The only others I can think of are Joel Rollinson (Reading) Kosta Sparta (Reading) Stefan Valentini (Braunschweig) Daniel Wong (Espanyol). Regardless, these blokes wouldn't have made it into the squad.

Hang on...A to P and Dylan is the only one that gets in
A quick google search shows APD stands for Adelaide Parcel Delivery
Gombau worked in Adelaide for several years.
Is it possible this whole camp was set up to boost the numbers of parcels being sent overseas from Adelaide in order to boost revenues?
Does Josep Gombau have some sort of financial stake in this Parcel Delivery service?

I think you're onto something.......

Ha, i have no idea what you're talking about but I absolutely love your spirit. Big thumbs up.

You may be on to something though. Could this be the reason for Josep's strange, untimely and unanswered departure from Hindmarsh? Makes as much sense as anything else I've heard.

And thanks for your insightful knowledge as to the general quality of kids around Ds98. I might be looking into things a little too much but it is a little strange this A to P weighted squad. Very unusual even.

So a 1-1 draw with Austria U21 overnight in Spain. Does anyone have any other info?

Sounds like​ it's real radio silence over there.

1-1 against Austria is good though!

But the sky is falling down. NC is crap according to Bulldog. 

Awer Mabil scored for us

@PinatarArena has the team sheet.

Teamsheet 

https://twitter.com/PinatarArena/status/845331477751615489

Assuming it was 4-3-3 the team would have lined up something like
Nizic
Cowburn - Burgess(c) - Deng - Gersbach
Mauk - O'Neill - Armenakas
Mabil - D. Juric - Hrustic

Australia plays Finland tonight. 

Wish there was more info on these games, come on FFA

2-0 loss to Finland. Two second half goals. 

Is that a really bad result, or just one of those 'doesn't matter' results?

Our side was well underage, right?

Thomas Glover (GK) 19
Nicholas Cowburn 22
Cameron Burgess 21
Thomas Deng 20
Milislav Popovic 20
Stefan Mauk 21
Awer Mabil 21
Panos Armenakas 18
Jake Brimmer 18
Joshua Laws 19
Aiden O'Neill 18

Lost against a Finland U21 squad. Not sure about the ages of the Finnish team but assume they would have been very similar.

Isn't it U23?
Yeah I have no idea what the ages of Finland were.

The team against Finland
https://twitter.com/PinatarArena/status/846398297464061953

Would really have loved to watch this and see how Gombau is getting some talented youngsters to play.  The FFA needs to get its act together.  Surely getting some schmuck on the sidelines with an iPhone live stream is an incredibly doable achievement. 

Cowburn playing every game so far, Gumby must see something in him. I think he is ok, has potential but probably came into the mix a bit late, but it's not to late for him.

He plays well when he gets the chance for the jets.  No idea why he was dropped, especially considering the dross in front of him.  ie Hoffman, Mullen and putting poor Kotroumbis in there for no apparent reason.

Agree mate, I always thought he did well, especially considering he was a midfielder in the NPL and had to adjust to the wide defender role.

Good to see Blaz is still around contributing to Aussie football.

It was the Finland U21 team. Here's the starting 11 with ages.

Nordqvist - 19 - Mariehamn
Nurmela - 20 - RoPS
Hämäläinen - 20 - Queens Park Rangers
Pirttijoki - 20 - GIF Sundsvall
Fredrik Lassas - 20 - HIFK 
Ala Myllymaki - 19 - FC Ilves
Järvenpää - 20 - RoPS
Dahlström - 20 - HJK
Kuningas - 19 - FC Lahti
Elias Ahde - 21 - SJK
Järvinen - 20 - FC Ilves

I have heard of Nordqvist and Lassas, the rest I have no clue

Your football knowledge is amazing.. I wouldn't even know a player from the Finnish senior national team!

I remember Saami Hyppia that's about it :D

I blame it on football manager Hahahha

Hahaha without doubt this is where a lot of my knowledge of players comes from.  I always sign young up and coming Australian players.  Sky sports and teams such as Everton actually use it as part of their scouting system.

Yeah I have seen a report that a lot of English teams use it as their initial suace hahaha

Ha! Haven't played in a good few years.. Can't wait till the day comes when I have a bit more time to play again!

I sign any Aussies, try to tutor them haha. But I play youth only rules, so I hardly get any Aussies :(

Did anyone else notice Isaac Danzo on the Australian team sheet for the Finland game? He wasn't in the originally announced squad, and I had never heard of him (and I know of like all the young Aussies abroad haha).

He's a number 6 and plays for Levante in Spain. He's apparently been there for a while, and had spent a while in Spain previously, due to his mother being Spanish.

Here's an article about him:
http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2015/07/25/technically-gifted-australian-looking-make-splash-valencia

He must have joined up with them once they were in Spain.

Remember him, but I forgot about him, I know nothing about him or how he has been going.
Good spot!

Lost 2-0 to Finland