Two injury-time goals by New Zealand for 6-0 – they must have the extra tournament ranking points in mind. (How big a victory would the formula expect?) Day 5 match report, Thursday - https://www.radionz.co.nz/internati...l-semi-final-spots-in-ofc-women-s-nations-cup (Archived) And highlights: NZ v Cook Islands and Fiji v Tonga. We didn't mention much about Tonga's players, so here they are. If they could even get a fraction of this support, they'd do great... (from TheSportsman.com) Today (Sat) PNG booked their semifinal place with a 3-1 win over Tahiti in Koné, after Tahiti had taken an early lead through Hanihei Taumaa. New Caledonia are also on their way through in 2nd place, beating Samoa 2-0
Saturday's videos, PNG keep their 100% win record: Papua New Guinea (red) v Tahiti (white) The hosts went through with a 2nd-half double: New Caledonia (white/red) v Samoa (blue) Day 7 match reports - PNG v Tahiti (Archived), New Caledonia v Samoa (Archived) Group A, 1 PNG 9pts, 2 New Caledonia 6pts, 3 Tahiti 1pt, 4 Samoa 1pt Tonga turned it around today with a win, and a clean sheet, against the Cook Islands in Group B.
Today Group B New Zealand 10 - Fiji 0 Tonga 1- Cook Islands 0 SEMIS Nov. 28 New Zealand vs. New Caledonia Papua New Guinea vs. Fiji
What exactly do you mean by "extra tournament ranking points"? I don't know about anything within OFC, but if you're talking FIFA rankings, then GD in this tournament doesn't mean much of anything for NZL unless they get played to a close game. Now, the difference between a 4-0 win and a 6-0 win is the difference between 0.970 and 0.990 - so no matter what the expected result is, you're talking about a difference that's just 2% of the 45pts available in WWCQ matches, or 0.9pts. That's not going to nudge much, though certainly would be nice to shift a loss of 0.4pts to a gain of 0.5pts. Now, NZL's FIFA rating is more than 500pts ahead of anyone else's in the tournament, so even in their "worst" match-up, their expected result is 0.947 out of 1.0, and usually will be closer to 0.990 out of 1.0. The FIFA ranking formula can only give a maximum actual result of 0.990, so if NZL wants to actually gain any points from this tournament, they need to have those 6+ blowouts all-around except when they face Fiji (there, a 3-0 win will suffice to earn them marginal points, and anything 6+ could get them a "whopping" 2pts! We're dealing with very small numbers here).
Yes, but New Zealand should also be improving. I guess you could say those other teams have "more to gain" in their improvement. But Zoo Nealand has the resources they don't have to continue improving as well.
The third matchday in Group B, the wins for Tonga and New Zealand: GROUP B HIGHLIGHTS | Tonga v Cook Islands - www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tlm_seT-Ro GROUP B HIGHLIGHTS | Fiji v New Zealand - www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlkmmiauXg4 Day 8 match report - www.oceaniafootball.com/new-zealand-books-semi-final-clash-with-hosts (Archived) Group B, 1 NZ 9pts, 2 Fiji 6pts, 3 Tonga 3pts, 4 Cook Islands 0pts
Simultaneous kickoffs, at 04:00 GMT on Wednesday. The full matches are streaming on mycujoo, PNG v Fiji and NZ v NC. The coverage has been good and informative so far - just not sure who the main commentators are. 'Gordon' and 'Lavinia'. These 2 games are the only ones being played outside the main island (Grande Terre), playing on Lifou and Maré. I think they said the teams are flying in and out on the day of the match. Fiji are unlikely to overhaul PNG (preview here), but it should be the less mismatched of the 2 semi-finals. This was Fiji's captain Jotivini Tabua earlier in the tournament:
Pardon me, Fiji are thrashing PNG in the semi-final. Coming back from a goal down, Fiji's Trina Davis has scored two and Fiji have also had a penalty saved. PNG's advantage from past tournaments has just been wiped out – they're usually quite a lot higher ranked than the other Pacific countries, but maybe not for long. Is that Christophe Gamel? He got a mention from Trina Davis in an interview this week – he was the first one she contacted about becoming a Fiji player. - https://footballoceania.com/2018/11...na-davis-wants-to-take-fiji-to-the-world-cup/ (Archived)
Some months ago, at the beginning of the qualifiers, this American-born Fijian player had already made a sensation and scored some substantial goals. It looks like her presence was one of the factor that took Fiji on a completely different level (although not enough yet, apparently, to even remotely compete with New Zealand: even the better developing teams, still use to lose to New Zealand by a 6+ margin, even 10 in the case of Fiji, maybe because they wanted to try and play an open game? Or the same difference in competence would have been there anyway? ).
Semifinals Fiji 5 - Papua New Guinea 1 New Zealand 8 - New Caledonia 0 Final Dec. 1 Fiji vs. New Zealand
Considering that last two major tournaments I can find for Fiji - 2010 OFC championship and 2015 Pacific games - the results here certainly are surprising! Those last two tournaments saw Fiji go 0W-2D-3L. I guess the thing that might really be going in their favor - since I'm always a little skeptical of single-player influence - is that they were the only team in this field of 8 that actually had to qualify for the tournament, so they might be more in-form than PNG or any of the other teams in the field, even if the only teams they beat in qualifying were the absolute lowest minnows in OFC. (Oddly, Fiji were already #3 in the region based on FIFA rating, but their previous competition records apparently were bad enough to put them in the bottom four in OFC's eyes! That certainly looks like a mistake now.)
yes, it is him, I bumped into him recently at the FIFA football conference in London that reviewed the 2018 World cup.
New Zealand qualifies after defeating Fiji 8-0 in the OFC Final. Third Place: Papua New Guinea 7 - New Caledonia 1 New Zealand won each game by a margin 8.5 goals. The "smallest" win was 6-0 over the Cook Islands. New Zealand was never tested during this tournament.
The parity is growing a "tad" bit stronger now in OFC. At this rate, New Zealand will finally not qualify for the WWC in 2107. It'll be interesting to see how the Football Ferns react after losing in OFC then. We're now only about 88 years away from OFC Qualification in late 2106.
Just more evident that New Zealand should be forced into a playoff against someone from AFC or CAF. If the 2023 WWC is in Japan or Australia, the births should be Host(1) AFC(5.5) UEFA(8) CAF(3) CONCACAF (3.5) CONMEBOL(2.5) OFC(.5)
Um, since the then world no.64 team qualified via a different joke tournament, then the OFC should get 1.5 or 2 places Just kidding. But, again, NZ would be happy with a playoff. They haven't got many big international friendlies atm. So, after the OFC tournament, here are the new FIFA rankings - December 2018: 19 New Zealand (+1) 1819pts 49 Papua New Guinea (RE) 1479pts 72 Fiji (+9) 1350pts 86 Tonga (RE) 1249pts 90 New Caledonia (RE) 1239pts 97 Tahiti (French Polynesia) (RE) 1218pts Semi-final highlights: Fiji's fine victory Papua New Guinea (yellow) v Fiji (blue), 28 Nov. Other vids: Semi-final: NZ v New Caledonia - Third-place: PNG v New Caledonia - Final: NZ v Fiji Day 10 match reports - semi-finals - www.oceaniafootball.com/31857-2 (Archived) Day 13 match report - final - oceaniafootball.com/new-zealand-complete-line-up-for-france-2019 (Archived) It's a bigger trophy than the World Cup, I'm just saying (photo: Phototek.co.nz / oceaniafootball)