Cook Islands Football today announced nine debutants in its national men’s squad to play Tonga in two friendly FIFA sanctioned matches this week.

Cook Islands coach Maurice Tillotson named a squad of 16 players to travel to Tonga this Tuesday ahead of Thursday and Saturday’s games at the National Soccer Academy in ‘Atele.

Goalkeeper, and incumbent captain, Tony Jamieson will accompany the team to Tonga as a non-playing member of the squad after breaking his thumb during training in Auckland on Sunday.  

New cap Junior Lupena replaces Jamieson as the goal keeper in the starting eleven and eight year international defender John Pareanga takes over the captaincy.

It has been five years since the Cook Islands and Tonga last met in an international match, on that occasion Tonga were the victors 2-1 on home soil.

A nucleus of ten Cook players have enjoyed a solid three months of training with Tillotson in Rarotonga before being joined by five New Zealand based players and two from Australia as the team gathered together for the first time in Auckland last Friday.

Most of the squad had an immediate opportunity to test their match fitness during a friendly practice match against Auckland senior men’s club team Forrest Hill on Saturday, losing to the highly rated United One Premier League side 4-0.

Tillotson, whose squad includes nine players under the age of 22, says that despite the scoreline the practice match will prove very valuable.

“It is a young team, most of the squad is around the age of 19 to 21 and the team hasn’t played for two years, we have quite a few debutants and as is usually the case we haven’t had a big window of time together before these international games.

“But I thought the boys did quite well on Saturday, their attitude remained very good and we were only one goal down at the half against Forrest Hill, who I think are doing very in the United One League. I’m confident we’ll be competitive this Thursday against Tonga. The Rarotongan boys in this squad haven’t played against a team of that pace before so it was great experience.”

And Tillotson says that these games represent an important initial test as Cook Islands Football sets its sights on a long term development campaign.

“It is quite an exciting time because I see some of the development work I did with some of these boys in the early ‘two-thousands’ coming through. We are building up to the World Cup qualifiers in 2011 and we’re still missing some good young players who aren’t currently available. These games will give our coaching staff an insight into how these lads can play together.”

Cook Islands Football Association is pleased to announce its 2009 National Men’s squad to play Tonga.

Campbell Best (debutant)

Allan Boere (debutant)

Nick Funnell (debutant)

Grover Harmon(debutant)

Abraham Jim (debutant)

Mii Joseph

Thomas Le Mouton

Junior Lupena (GK) (debutant)

Roger Manuel (debutant)

Paavo Mustonen

Joseph Ngauora (debutant)

John Pareanga (Capt)

John-Michael Quijano

Anonga Tisam

Tuka Tisam

Brandan Turepu (debutant) 

Injured: Tony Jamieson (GK)

Coach: Maurice Tillotson

Assistant Coach: Jimmy Katoa

ENDS.