The Australian side will compete alongside International squads from Brazil, China, Egypt, England, Indonesia, Russia and South Korea, as well as eight Japanese teams.

Northern NSW and Football NSW have previously combined to field a squad to represent Australia on the international stage, however 2012 sees the two NSW federations join with Football Queensland for the first time.

Northern NSW will be represented by Christopher Fayers (Metford), Jez Murray (Halliday’s Point), Jake McGuiness (Elermore Vale), Reece Pettit (Eleebana), and Tyson Cummings (Hamilton North).

The five Northern NSW representative players will compete in the Tournament alongside five players from Football NSW and six from Football Queensland.

“The opportunity to gain experience at an International level with elite players from other States will be a significant milestone in the careers of these players,” said Northern NSW Football Technical Director, David Smith.

Not only are the Northern NSW players able to benchmark their technical ability against fellow Australian players, but they are also given the chance to test themselves against a variety of International playing systems.

“All players from the three Australian Federations are working within the FFA National Curriculum playing methodology and using the 1-4-3-3 playing system. As a group we will have had minimal training time together but as we are all following the same curriculum across Australia which will make it much easier for the team to gel together,

“Of major interest to the coaching staff will be the adjustment to playing against teams that use different playing systems and players’ reactions to challenges of playing in a foreign environment against quality opposition,” concluded Smith.

The squad will travel to Japan tomorrow, Friday April 27th, with the Tournament commencing on Wednesday May 2nd and concluding Saturday May 5th where matches will be played at the Komazawa Olympics Parks Sports Ground.

Full squad list as follows:

Tyson Cummings - Northern NSW Football
Christopher Fayers - Northern NSW Football
Jake McGuiness - Northern NSW Football
Jez Murray - Northern NSW Football
Reece Pettit - Northern NSW Football
Jackson Bandiera - Football NSW
Joe Caletti - Football NSW
Gian Mendez - Football NSW
Jordan Pyne - Football NSW
Zac Speth - Football NSW
Danny Kim - Football Queensland
Nicholas Panetta - Football Queensland
Toan Pham - Football Queensland
Tomas Ross - Football Queensland
Kye Rowles - Football Queensland

Head Coach: Trevor Morgan (Football NSW)
Assistant Coach: Chris Collins (Football Queensland)
Technical Director: David Smith (Northern NSW Football)