Lady Reds midfielder Jessica Waterhouse has been named captain of the Westfield Australian U-17 Women’s Team for the upcoming AFC U-16 Girls Championship Qualifiers.
Lady Reds midfielder Jessica Waterhouse has been named as captain for the Westfield Australian U-17 Women’s National Team for the upcoming AFC U-16 Girls Championship Qualifiers which kicks-off this week between November 7-11 2012 in Manila, Philippines.
Waterhouse has starred in her two performances for Adelaide United this season and Lady Reds coach Dave Edmondson said her call up and captaincy was certainly justified.
“Jess has shown in the first two games that she has the quality to go on and play a big part in the qualifying campaign and she will be missed by the Lady Reds the next two weeks,” he said.
“To be named as captain of the national team at any age is a huge honour and one that is well deserved. We wish Jess the best of luck.”
Group C (AESAN) of the AFC U-16 Girls Championship Qualifiers will see the Westfield Australian U-17 Women’s National Team meet Thailand (7 Nov), Myanmar (9 Nov) and the Philippines (11 Nov) with the top two teams progressing to the AFC U-16 Girls Championship which will be held next year and will serve at the qualification tournament for the FIFA U-17 Women-s World Cup.
Head Coach Vicki Linton is optimistic about her team-s prospects at their first international competition.
“The squad has come together since selections at the Westfield FFA National Junior Championships for Girls in July,” said Linton.
“We-ve had four camps since then and I-ve had quite a good look at about 30 odd players and they-ve really developed even over those four camps which I am really pleased with.
“We go into the qualifiers against Myanmar, Thailand and the Philippines – our goal will be to qualify, realistically to top the group, but qualification comes first.
“This will be the first full international in a competitive match for most of these players, so there-s a lot of learning to be done but we-ve got a good group, there-s good consistency across the squad and some talented players in there.”
The Westfield Australian U-17 Women’s National Team assembled for a pre-tournament training camp at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra last week.
