Dates: Dec 7-16 (depending on group) The American Samoa team is getting ready to compete in the Oceania U21 tournament to be held later next month in Fiji. They leave on Nov 17 for a three game tour of New Zealand. American Samoa will pick a team from 83 players. Ten teams are in the competition and American Samoa are pooled with Australia, Fiji, Tonga, and PNG. http://www.samoanews.com/saturday/SAsports/story1.html The above link will be gone in a few days. The above article appears to be wrong. It should be an U20 squad and not U21. According to this article http://www.socceraustralia.com.au/n...234&type=&from=not_home&string=6&ArchiveLink= these are the groups "Group A (in Vanuatu) Australia, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea Group B (in Fiji) New Zealand, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa" Group A will be played Dec 7-11 and Group B from Dec 8-16. Cook Islands withdrew from Group A. The top two teams from each group play in a two leg series to decide the champion. Here is the Australian squad http://www.socceraustralia.com.au/n...130&type=&from=not_home&string=6&ArchiveLink=story "Goalkeepers Nathan Coe - Inter Milan - Italy Tom Willis - Newcastle United - Australia Defenders Alex Wilkinson - Northern Spirit - Australia Daniel Piorkowski - Melbourne Knights - Australia Matthew Osman - Northern Spirit - Australia David Tarka - Perth Glory - Australia Wayne Heath - Brisbane Strikers - Australia Midfielders Spase Dilevski - PSV Eindhoven - Netherlands Massimo Murdocca - South Melbourne - Australia Carl Valeri - Inter Milan - Italy Matthew McKay - Brisbane Strikers - Australia Jonathan Richter - Northern Spirit - Australia Dustin Wells - Wollongong Wolves - Australia Vince Lia - South Melbourne - Australia Strikers Franco Parisi - Olympic Sharks - Australia Scott McDonald - Southampton - England Alex Brosque - Marconi Stallions - Australia Brett Holman - Excelsior (on loan) - Netherlands Michael Baird - South Melbourne - Australia Mark Tsiorlas - FC Utrecht - Netherlands "
Lost a few posts in this thread, but Australia won their group in the Solomon Islands. Fiji beat New Zealand 1-0... Fiji plays American Samoa and if they win that game they will advance to play Australia in a two-leg home and home series... the winner goes to the U20 WYC.
Here is a link to the story on fijifootball.com http://www.fijifootball.com/show/news/2002/12/15/15u.htm
The dates for the final have been changed 1st leg: Dec 21st in Melbourne 2nd leg: Dec 23rd in Ba (Fiji) Here is a story from the 4-0 victory Fiji had over American Samoa.. http://www.fijifootball.com/show/news/2002/12/17/17z13.html
"The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting a top temperature of 36 degrees for Melbourne, with the playoff to decide who will represent Oceania at the world youth championship scheduled for the hottest part of the day at 1.30pm at Bob Jane Stadium." http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0,8659,5714189-23210,00.html Too bad they have to play the game in the afternoon.....
This game is now being televised, should be interesting to see how many people turn out for it. I've had to rearrange my weekend now I will be able to watch it.
You'll have to wait for my view on the game, it is aparently now a delayed telecast. I won't see it till tomorrow. I'm really not happy at the moment.
We get a lot of Canadian tape delayed games.... blah.. Final score Australia 11 Fiji 0 I suppose you will get to see a lot of goals. Hopefully Fiji can manage a good game at home in a few days...
I really hope they can as well. I thought they would be alot stronger, so hopefully they just didn't play well today. TV coverage is about to really pick up here, one of the side effects of the oceania direct qualification is that TV stations now want the rights to australian soccer and the domestic league (they are sold together) because of the increased chance of us being at the world cup. Hopefull this will mean more games shown live.
Second leg in Ba, Fiji Australia 4 Fiji 0 (Australia wins 15-0 on aggregate and advances to the 2003 WYC in United Arab Emirates) http://202.51.168.95/public/article/show.asp?articleid=5741&menuItemID= http://www.fijifootball.com/show/news/2002/12/24/24z.htm Too bad Fiji couldn't even score a goal? I wonder if New Zealand would have been able to put up a better fight?