Lachlan Wilson and Daniel Peel have been named in the Australian under-16 futsal side who will tour Italy next year, while Jeremiah Barbara and Matthew Peel made the national under-15 futsal side who will tour Brazil in 2018.

Daniel and Matthew are brothers. And all four are futsal novices, although they have extensive traditional soccer experience.

They made the Australian teams after playing for Northern NSW in a national tournament in the first week of the recent school holidays.

“It’s huge for these boys,” said Peter Yeo, an Oxley High School physical education teacher. 

“All four of these boys are a product of our Talented Athlete Program.”

The four boys were also members of the school’s Bill Turner Cup side who finished top 16 in the state this year.

Yeo said: “I was asked to take them to a futsal comp [following the Cup], which we’ve never done before.”

“It’s a huge effort for the boys,” he added. “But as I said, it just sells what we’re doing with our Talented Athlete Program.”

Via the program, which runs throughout the year, the boys are exposed to two hours a week of coaching that is overseen by Northern Inland Football technical director Howard Stubbs.

“This [the national selections] has just been a product of that training that they’ve had,” Yeo said. “It is working for these kids.

“They’re really gaining some quality coaching consistently throughout the year.”

Speaking on behalf of the four boys, Daniel Peel said none of them had dreamed this could happen.  “We hadn’t even played [futsal] out of Tamworth,” he said.

“It [the national comp] was the first time we played out of Tamworth and we made it into Australian teams. It’s crazy.”

He added: "After playing in the state competition, I prefer playing futsal now [over traditional soccer].”

Futsal is a variant of soccer that is played on a hard court. The court is smaller than a traditional soccer pitch and there are teams of five.