Preliminary tournament started today Fiji. Winner advances to OFC Women's Cup to be held in New Caledonia from November 18 - December 1. Winner qualifies for the 2019 World Cup & 2020 Olympics. Aug. 24 Solomon Islands 2 - American Samoa 0 Fiji 5 - Vanuatu 1 Aug. 26 Vanuatu vs. American Samoa Fiji vs. Solomon Islands Aug. 30 Vanuatu vs. Solomon Islands Fiji vs. American Samoa FINAL DRAW Group A: New Caledonia, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Tahiti Group B: New Zealand, Cook Islands, Tonga, preliminary qualifier
OK, well... In the qualifying for the 1986 and 1990 men's World Cups, the OFC zone contained Chinese Taipei and Israel because they were politically shunned by some AFC countries. The Chinese embassy even made a complaint to New Zealand when the national flag of Taiwan was flown at a game here. That's why Taiwan invented the yellow one. Oceanian football was never more politically relevant. Do you really want it to go back to being relevant??!! I don't think so! A nice predictable qualifying tourney, that's what the people want. Let the games begin! Trina Davis shone for the hosts Fiji in their first game, with 3 goals:
TODAY Vanuatu 1 - Solomon Islands 0 Fiji 2 - American Samoa 0 Final Standings 1. Fiji 2-1-0 (7pts) 2. Vanuatu 2-0-1 (6pts) 3. Solomon Islands 1-1-1 (4pts) 4. American Samoa 0-0-3 (0pts) Fiji qualifies for final round.
Are they the Solomon Islands, or are they Brazil? (the way Brazil are going, I'm not sure) This was the group-winning game for the hosts, another goal for Davis: Fiji (white) v American Samoa (blue), 30 Aug
I had wondered how they had managed to draw vs Fiji, but now it's clear: they're actually Brazil in disguise!
It needs more than 1 goal per minute: not easy task. Everytime you have to cut very short with celebrations and quickly take the ball back to the midfield-circle.
Some news: New Caledonia is the host, and is competing in its first OFC Women's Nations Cup since 1983. This marks another step up in their soccer program after they reached the 2015 Pacific Games women's football final, which PNG won 1-0. This month the islands voted narrowly against independence from France Happily this tournament has been full of new entries and comebacks. It's the first time that every full OFC member country has entered the tournament. Samoa are in their first OFC championship since 2003. The squad features a goalscorer from that very tournament, Lynetta Laumea-Edward, who also works in football development. Coach Nicola Demaine was previously in New Zealand. PNG are the Pacific champions and will hope for another final this year. Striker Marie Kaipu was added to the team's attack at the last minute. The Cook Islands finished 3rd in the previous tourneys, and won bronze in the Pacific Games 2015. Their captain Elizabeth Harmon, who plays locally, talked about her career and representing her home country. Their first game is against Fiji today. The French Polynesia team Tahiti (Vahine Ura) are playing their first games in 7 years, and have called up several youth players. More previews/interviews here: - https://www.oceaniafootball.com/tournament-openers-make-for-historic-occasion/ (Archived)
And the opening day - the ideal start for the host team New Caledonia (in red) against Tahiti. In the other match, it ended PNG 5, Samoa 0 (highlights). Match reports (day 1) - https://www.oceaniafootball.com/dream-return-to-nations-cup-for-the-cagoues/ (Archived) https://www.radionz.co.nz/internati...make-winning-start-to-ofc-women-s-nations-cup (Archived)
Loudest ninja I've ever heard.... If you could avoid patronizing the teams, that would be super awesome. They're footballers like anyone else.
More highlights from yesterday: 2018 OFC WOMEN'S NATIONS CUP | Cook Islands v Fiji Highlights - www.youtube.com/watch?v=g87ZNpkbMGo Fiji continue to look like one of the stronger OFC teams, and Davis added to her goals in the qualifiers in August. About rankings: the OFC article calls Fiji "lowest-ranked" qualifier, but is that only because the other nations didn't need to qualify? Fiji didn't take part in the 2014 tournament. Thanks to playing in the qualifiers, Fiji are actually the 2nd-highest OFC team in the current world rankings (no.81, with 1286pts). Although, looking at the points, it seems PNG (1473pts) would've been higher if they hadn't been inactive recently. - https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/women/ofc.html Match reports (day 2) - https://www.oceaniafootball.com/positive-start-for-fiji-and-new-zealand/ (Archived) - https://www.radionz.co.nz/internati...make-ominous-start-to-ofc-women-s-nations-cup (Archived) - https://footballoceania.com/2018/11/19/fiji-in-control-as-they-take-easy-win-over-the-cook-islands/ (Archived)
Sorry, didn't mean to be disrespectful to Tonga: my irony was on New Zealand, who always has the easier qualifier in the world, since Australia is not considered part or their continent anymore...
Easy qualifiers, you say www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfBsoRggPFk I'm sure the NZ players would welcome a match that's a bit more challenging. For some reason, FIFA haven't got round to giving them a playoff.
Wow, interesting results. In particular a 5-5 is a score that I don't remember having seen before in a match (in regular time), at least lately: normally, if a team scores so much is because they're dominating the opponent, but in this case they obviously had to exchange blows like crazy on a parity level!
I doubt either Tahiti or Samoa have decent GKs. Samoa did have an own goal as well. If there's highlights available, it'll be interesting to see how easily these goals came.
The Fiji men's team manager is probably helping the women team. He has an excellent knowledge of the women game as he was assistant manager at PSG Women in his previous job.
They're lucky to have her, she got 5 of the goals in their win over New Caledonia. Looked like they really stunned the hosts in the first half: New Caledonia (white/red) v PNG (yellow) Marie Kaipu was PNG's goalscorer when they beat NC in the 2015 Pacific Games final, and she was also given some school help around the U20 WWC in 2016. Some good goals in the other game, and goals in such quantity Samoa almost won the match 6-5 late on: Tahiti (red) v Samoa (blue) Match reports, day 4 - https://www.radionz.co.nz/internati...ng-first-through-to-women-s-nations-cup-semis (Archived) - https://www.oceaniafootball.com/goals-galore-as-png-remain-on-track/ (Archived) Cook Islands are 4 down to NZ midway through the 2nd half now – previous tournaments had the Cooks losing in double-figures. Earlier today, Fiji beat Tonga 12-0, prior to the Fiji-NZ group game on Sunday.
Final scores from Group B today New Zealand 6 - Cook Islands 0 Fiji 12 - Tonga 0 Semis likely to be New Zealand vs. New Caledonia & Papua New Guinea vs. Fiji.