POSTED: Thursday October 1st 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bouzanis Confident Qantas Young Socceroos Can Rebound

Qantas Young Socceroos lose their opening FIFA U-20 World Cup match against the Czech Republic and face Costa Rica next.

Qantas
Young Socceroos keeper Dean Bouzanis is confident the team can rebound
after losing their opening FIFA U-20 World Cup match against the Czech Republic. 

Costa
Rica are next up, who will also be eager to rebound after suffering a
5-0 loss to Brazil – a scoreline which could have been different had
Costa Rica converted some of their early chances, while they also had a
penalty appeal waved away when it was still scoreless. 

Bouzanis
and his teammates know they must get a result against Costa Rica
tomorrow if they are any chance of advancing to the knockout phase of
the 24-team tournament.  

“It
was a disappointing result and disappointing to play as bad as we did
but it’s a positive that we were still in the game,’’ Bouzanis said. 

“Maybe
there was some nerves there or maybe we just had a bad game. Teams can
have bad games but at the World Cup you can afford to do that so we
need to turn it around as quick as we can. 

“And
I’m confident we can, we’ve got Costa Rica next and then Brazil and I
believe the boys are good enough to get maximum points from those games. 

“The preparation starts now and everything that we do has to be spot on and if it is spot on then we’ve got a chance.’’  

Bouzanis
was playing just his second match for the Qantas Young Socceroos and
while he was happy with his performance, he knows team success is all
that matters. 

“It was a massive honour to play for my country and the team that I always wanted to play for, Australia,’’ he said. 

“Being
a boy you want to play for a big club and you want to play for your
national team. I’ve done that now and I was very happy to do that. 

“On
my own performance I thought I was solid and I thought I did what I had
to do but then again I would rather the team get the points. It’s not a
one man game, it’s about the team and I want us to do as well as we
can.’’

 

Bouzanis
is one of four Liverpool players at the FIFA U-20 World Cup, alongside
England defender Martin Kelly and Hungary trio Peter Gulacsi, Krisztian
Nemeth and Andras Simon, though the latter pair are on loan to AEK
Athens and Cordoba FC (Spain) respectively. 

While
all of them ended up on losing sides in their respective opening
matches, he and fellow keeper Gulacsi have shared the no.1 shirt with
Liverpool’s reserves and both are battling for the back up spot behind
Spanish keeper Pepe Reina at Anfield. 

“We
haven’t really had a good start, all the Liverpool boys have lost so
we’re all looking to bounce back because we would love to go far in
this tournament,’’ Bouzanis said. 

“Peter
and I have been battling away for a couple of years now and we still be
battling for the next few years and we’ll see what happens after that. 

“But
we are very close and we are both good keepers – he’s good in some
areas, I’m good in others so it’s just a matter of finding who can
adapt to the English game quicker and Liverpool has to make the
decision and we’ll see what happens. 

“There’s always going to be competition wherever you go, whether it’s national team or club football.’’ 

All Qantas Young Socceroos matches at the FIFA U-20 World Cup will be broadcast live and exclusive on SBS TV (see www.sbs.com.au for full broadcast details).  

ENDS

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Keywords · Qantas Young Socceroos · FFA · Dean Bouzanis · FIFA U-20 World Cup · Costa Rica

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Name: Bonita Mersiades
Organization: FFA Football Federation Australia
Email:
Phone: +61 2 8354 5544
URL: http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/default.aspx?s=home

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