Football Frenzy Heads North

While all eyes remain locked on the World Cup, Central Coast and Melbourne will take part in their first competitive fixture for several months when they face each other in Saturday's opening match of the North Queensland Challenge Trophy.

Their two other opponents in the round robin tournament are the U-20 Young Socceroos and Chinese team, Changchun Yatai, who currently sit in second position in the Super League behind runaway leaders Shandong Luneng.

For the Mariners, Wayne O'Sullivan is out injured (ankle), but may feature in the latter stages of the tournament. Captain Noel Spencer is also suffering from a mild injury (knee) but is scheduled to take part. This will be the first big test for Central Coast since the double loss of Michael Beauchamp and Dean Heffernan, so it will be highly interesting to see how Lawrie McKinna has re-shaped the team defensively. Striker Adam Kwasnik, who still has much to prove following a less than stellar season off the bench, is coming off a hat-trick against third-tier state league opposition. If Andre Gumprecht and Tom Pondeljak are in good form, it's tough to see the Mariners getting beaten.

Melbourne welcome back Kristian Sarkies from Socceroos duty and enter the tournament full of confidence after a series of good results against Victorian state league opponents. Fred and Claudinho, the new signings from Brazil, will be out to please the Rockhampton and Townsville crowds, who will hopefully number in the several thousands for each match. Along with Fred, Adrian Caceres is the in form Victory player. In terms of player contracts, Melbourne have not remained as stable as the Mariners during the off season, but given the quality of the new signings they should be competitive and push the Mariners for the trophy. Sixteen year-old midfielders Paul Giannou (singled out by Brank Culina as a player to watch) and Bonel Obradevic from the AIS have travelled with the team.

The Young Socceroos were embarrassed by the New Zealand U-20s recently and thus don't factor as resilient opposition even though they have a good historical record against A-League teams. Goalkeeper Alex Vrteski from Perth Glory and defender Wade Oostendorp from Sydney FC are the only A-Leaguers in the regular U-20s squad, which has already qualified for the finals of the AFC Youth Championship. They will face the U-20s of China in the group stage of that tournament, perhaps explaining and justifying their place in the Challenge Trophy.

(Update (Jun-17): While Vrteski made it into the squad, Oostendorp did not. Tarek Elrich from the Newcastle United Jets is, however. David Williams (Brondby), Scott Jamieson (Bolton) and Cameron Watson (Porto) have also been selected, significantly improving the squad from that which faced New Zealand.)

I can't confess to know much about Changchun Yatai save that a few Honduran players are peppered throughout their squad, and that they don't enter the tournament with good form having lost their last two matches before the mid-season break in the CSL. You would have to think that a top flight Chinese team will provide stiff competition for the A-League clubs, but in reality Changchun are likely to rotate players, rest their stars, and concentrate on building international relations with Australian business partners, rather than aim for victories at all cost.