OFC Champions League will start it's 7th edition in a two months time in a new format. Number of clubs is same as in previous years, 8 teams in 2 groups. Since this season, we have top 2 teams from each group progress into semi final stage and then winners qualify to final. Semi final stage is played over two legs while final is to be played in one game at neutral venue - Auckland is first city to host one-legged final. We saw qualification stage included for this season, with teams from all 11 associations played. Unlike previous seasons, OFC Champions League will last for two months only, all in order to low costs and to have more competitive teams, better scheduling and to have teams focused only on continental competition. All leagues are aligned to this competition - some will end before, some will start after. Group A Ba (Fiji) Hekari United (Papua New Guinea) Solomon Warriors (Solomon Islands) Amicale (Vanuatu) Group B Mont-Dore (New Caledonia)* Auckland City (New Zealand) Waitakere United (New Zealand) Dragon (Tahiti) Semi final B2 - A1 A2 - B1 Final semi final winners *- Mont-Dore qualified via playoff, beating Tupapa Maraerenga (Cook Islands) by 3-1 last June. Group stage will be played in period of 30 March - 28 April, with semi final played on 4 and 11 May and final on 19 May 2013. Title holder is Auckland City. Previous winners: Auckland City (NZL) in 2009, 2011, 2012 Waitakere United (NZL) in 2007, 2008 Hekari United (PNG) in 2010 I will try to follow this as better as possible and I hope we'll see the best OCL ever, and I hope more people will join discussion.
It is good that allowed four weak federations to fight for the group stage. But not very well, they still have to play the play-off round, so the chances of a group of 0%. It would be better to give direct ticket to the group, and the Federation of the weakest of the previous year set off in the preliminary round. As an option - remove one participant from New Zealand and leave everyone in the same position: 1 country - 1 team.
I agree, worst team from previous season should play in preliminary, while preliminary winner qualifies to group stage. And I also agree with NZL, only one team should qualify.
I would suggest two playoffs spots. And that the second NZL spot would go for the holder team or association. For this year, it would not change anything. So the preliminary round would qualify two teams for the playoffs. This year, the playoffs would have included also a series between Lotoha'apai United (TGA) and Solomon Warriors (SOL). It would not change nothing as well, but that is not the idea. -- Other thing they could do is include everybody in, two groups of six teams. Single round-robin (5 matches), top-2 advance.
In that case there would be teams that played more or less home games than some other teams... with 12 teams, I would go with 4 groups of 3, with group winners qualify to semis. But, I am, as neutral viewer, satisfied with this group stage format.
12 teams is nice but I think that the team from the Cook Islands, Tonga and Samoa (both) are not yet ready for that, would all play. It will be sad game and defeated the 5 to 10 goals or more. Usually half games of the game day will be such. Here, you need to connect them gradually. This year, if removed playoff round that his forces could test the Cook Islands. As an option for the promotion of football (soccer) in the preliminary round would be to add teams associate members: that is, with Tuvalu, Palau, Kiribati and Niue. Let spend a small tournament among themselves, and the winner of the ticket to the main round of the Champions League.
Of course they are not, I just mentioned what would be nice format if all were included. If this format stays, Preliminary Round winner will never get in as they play three games in five days (pro players would be exhausted, I can't imagine how exhausted are amateurs) and two days later they play way better team in final playoff match - team that is fully prepared for that game. Too big gap to make something out of it.
3 games in 5 days, it is wrong. Though well as playing in the Caribbean and in Asia but it is not good. I have never understood why poor countries and teams are playing in 2 days?
Most possibly it is done to minimize costs... in ideal world they would play home&away tournament, but, what can you do.
Source? I can understand your reasoning but as I understood it, because NZ's FIFA ranking and the strength of their national league compare to others in the OFC, they get two teams. Just like in UEFA Champions League where there are three English teams, three Spanish teams and three Italian teams because the national league strength and high FIFA Rankings. Anyway, Auckland City is the OFC Champion Title holder and Waitakere United is the National League holder and if a NZ team wins the OFC Champion title, it would probably be two NZ teams again next season.
I read something on the yellowfever forum, with reason being other nations being unhappy with fact that NZL is in better position to qualify to CWC with two teams in the OL, so only Waitakere (as grand final winner) will take part in 2013-14 season. FIFA rankings don't have anything with UEFA CL and EL spots, just to clarify. It's all about clubs' performances in continental cups.
O-League starts in three days, with both groups played on 30 March. Group A Solomon Warriors - Amicale Hekari - Ba Group B Waitakere - Dragon Mont-Dore - Auckland City It seems to me there were some changes in calendar as all six rounds are played weekend to weekend, with no games during week - when I watched it lat time, there were some games scheduled for wednesdays.
Wednesday games are stupid, the players are amateurs not full professionals. You want the players to be at their best for recovery, the traveling time and the ground conditions are hard enough to contend with and there is less training time as it is from week to week, let alone expecting any mid-week game is totally unfounded. I think the national league games of the nations involved has to work at a different time of the year to allow this to happen. I think I read it somewhere.
Yeah, I am aware of this. I was wondering at first how on earth they planned to make amateurs play mid-week games, and worse, in far away countries. This is the best way possible, and maybe they could have introduce free weekend after every two games.
Seems there is mid-week round after all, played on 17 April (matchday 4). Also, new competition logo looks like this:
Competition finally kicked off. Group A Solomon Warriors - Amicale 0-2 Hekari - Ba 1-3 Group B Waitakere - Dragon 0-0 Mont-Dore - Auckland City 0-2
Two rounds have been played since my last input here. Group A Solomon Warriors - Ba 2-2 Hekari - Amicale 0-0 Ba - Hekari 2-0 Amicale - Solomon Warriors 2-0 1. Ba 7 2. Amicale 7 3. Hekari 1 4. Solomon Warriors 1 Group B Mont-Dore - Dragon 1-4 Waitakere United - Auckland City 1-3 Auckland City - Mont-Dore 12-2 Dragon - Waitakere United 0-1 1. Auckland City 9 2. Dragon 4 3. Watakere United 4 4. Mont-Dore 0 Auckland City matched biggest winning margin with 10 goals win. Sole record by today was Waitakere's 10-0 win against Tefana last season. Also, with 14 goals this is the new record for highest scoring match in this competition. Previous was 10 goals, happened on two occasions. Next round is played on wednesday.
Matchday 4 was played today. Shocking result in group B almost sealed all semifinalists. Group A Ba - Solomon Warriors 5-0 Amicale - Hekari 2-0 1. Ba 10 2. Amicale 10 3. Hekari 1 4. Solomon Warriors 1 On saturday Amicale hosts Ba in a match that can decide what team will win first place. Amicale needs to win to seal place 1, as like as Ba. If there is draw, last round will decide. Winner gets hosting of second leg in semi final. Group B Auckland City - Dragon 1-3 Waitakere - Mont-Dore 3-1 1. Auckland City 9 2. Dragon 7 3. Waitakere United 7 4. Mont-Dore 0 Next round is played on sunday and tuesday. On sunday there is New Zealand derby, and on tuesday Dragon hosts Mont-Dore. Auckland qualifies if win, and Dragon will need one point at home against Auckland on last matchday if they beat already relegated Mont-Dore. Mont-Dore is about to become the team with most goals allowed if they get three goals in next two matches @ Dragon and vs Waitakere. Auckland City needs to score four goals to break Waitakere's record from last season of scoring 21 goals in group stage.
Matchday 5 is over. Group A Amicale - Ba 1-2 Solomon Warriors - Hekari 4-2 1. Ba 13 2. Amicale 10 3. Solomon Warriors 4 4. Hekari 1 On last matchday Ba hosts Amicale and must not lose by two goals to keep first place. First place brings hosting of semifinal leg 2. Group B Auckland City - Waitakere United 0-1 Dragon - Mont-Dore 1-1 1. Waitakere United 10 2. Auckland City 9 3. Dragon 8 4. Mont-Dore 1 Dragon failed to beat worst-ever team in OCL at home and now they have to beat reigning champions Auckland City to progress to the semifinal. In last matchday, next weekend, they will host Auckland City and will play without captain Nicolas Vallar who got sent off in 5th minute od added time against Mont-Dore, while Waitakere goes to New Caledonia to confirm first place. Mont-Dore won a point after record 8 losses in a row - they are yet to win a match in OCL, as they never won a single match in this competition with 0-2-13 - also record for most consecutive games without a win. Also, they conceded 22 goals this season - next goal they concede will match Manu-Ura's record of 23 conceded goals - most conceded goals in a single season.
Group stage is over. Group A Ba - Amicale 2-0 Hekari - Solomon Warriors 2-1 1. Ba 16 2. Amicale 10 3. Solomon Warriors 4 4. Hekari 4 Group B Mont-Dore - Waitakere 2-3 Dragon - Auckland City 1-1 1. Waitakere 13 2. Auckland City 10 3. Dragon 9 4. Mont-Dore 1 Ba dominated group A with fantastic display in every game. Waitakere had a tough time to keep first place in last matchday while Auckland City sneaked into semifinal with disallowed goal for Dragon and crossbar that saved them 15 minutes before time. Mont-Dore have set new record - they conceded 25 goals in group stage and kept on their record with 16 games without win - in that period they only played two draws, one of them in last matchday where they denied Dragon from entering semifinal. Semifinal Ba - Auckland City Waitakere - Amicale teams on left host second leg dates are May 4 and May 11.
First semifinal game is played Amicale - Waitakere 0-2 Roy Krishna scored brace to qualify his team to the final (home game is just a formality) and he also came on top of goalscorers list in OFC CL history and joined ex Waitakere and current Auckland player Danijel Koprivčić with 16 goals each. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFC_Champions_League#Top_five_goalscorers Tomorrow we'll see second leg of the first semifinal day as Auckland City hosts Ba.
Auckland City trashed Ba by 6-1. Didn't see that coming, especially when we see that HT result was 1-1. So, we are having NZL finale, for the first time in competition's history (only once was possible, though).