I think it’s Wade Molony, who is the player liaison officer or player manager; not sure his exact role but it’s something along those lines. Might be similar/same role as Seamus Marten had, if you’ve listened to the Between Two Beers podcast. He’s a Northern League player, was at Western Springs last season.
Solomon's as predicted are dominating proceedings - majority of possession, good chances, a lot of ball in and around the Cook Island 18 yard box. Went up 1-0 after 20 minutes and I thought they might just run over the top of their opponents. However it's not been the case, that just said and Alvin Hou places it in the bottom left hand corner after a beautiful counter attack from the Solomon's to send them in at H/T 2-0 up.
Gusty conditions for this one, with the wind at the back of the Solomon's in the first half. Hopefully for the Cooks in the second half they can utilize that strong breeze and bring in some more short passing to their game. As it may have been expected from the outset, a lot of 11 men behind the ball for the Cook Islands when defending, so when they have won possession they simply haven't had an outlet up front to alleviate pressure.
Finishes 2-0 Solomon Islands. Very creditable performance at the back from the Cooks. Thought Mata was actually quite superb, given what they were up against. Cut out a lot of ball and gave as good as he got.
Now they just need to work on their passing! But that was to be expected that they wouldn't retain a lot of possession. Still, they can be proud of that performance. It gives them something to work with and shows they can compete and make the opponent work very hard.
Solomon's will be disappointed with that. Good to get the minutes in the legs, but lots of wayward passing, poor option taking and almost a sense of aimlessness in attack - like they expected the goals to just flow for them. Their Spanish gaffer was very animated throughout, and I suspect he'll not be very pleased with the overall performance from his squad.
Following rapid antigen testing conducted on March 17 which revealed positive cases of COVID-19 in a vast majority of the Vanuatu squad, the scheduled Match Day 1 meeting between Vanuatu and Tahiti at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ Oceania Qualifiers will not go ahead.
The tests were conducted prior to the Vanuatu squad departing their team hotel for the stadium.
Vanuatu would not have had enough players to field a team.
OFC is working with FIFA on the matter and will provide a further update in due course.
Following rapid antigen testing conducted on March 17 which revealed positive cases of COVID-19 in a vast majority of the Vanuatu squad, the scheduled Match Day 1 meeting between Vanuatu and Tahiti at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ Oceania Qualifiers will not go ahead.
The tests were conducted prior to the Vanuatu squad departing their team hotel for the stadium.
Vanuatu would not have had enough players to field a team.
OFC is working with FIFA on the matter and will provide a further update in due course.
How on earth are FIFA/OFC going to manage that? Obviously this tournament is very time bound and no scope to extend it further. I'm assuming they had some kind of Covid contingency plan in place but then again..
If a team can't field enough players do they forfeit the match or is the game a draw? Considering the tight timeline as it is I don't see how they can reschedule anything? Even if NZ is the best team on paper, imagine if a few of the guys get Covid and we have to forfeit and miss qualifying the next round. What a mess.
I'd expect NZ guys are more immune as most of them have probably already had the virus recently which may not be not be the case with guys from the Islands. Regardless I was looking forward to watching some international football that is meaningful... Really hoping Covid doesn't ruin the tourn.
How on earth are FIFA/OFC going to manage that? Obviously this tournament is very time bound and no scope to extend it further. I'm assuming they had some kind of Covid contingency plan in place but then again..
Finishes 2-0 Solomon Islands. Very creditable performance at the back from the Cooks. Thought Mata was actually quite superb, given what they were up against. Cut out a lot of ball and gave as good as he got.
Now they just need to work on their passing! But that was to be expected that they wouldn't retain a lot of possession. Still, they can be proud of that performance. It gives them something to work with and shows they can compete and make the opponent work very hard.
Solomon's will be disappointed with that. Good to get the minutes in the legs, but lots of wayward passing, poor option taking and almost a sense of aimlessness in attack - like they expected the goals to just flow for them. Their Spanish gaffer was very animated throughout, and I suspect he'll not be very pleased with the overall performance from his squad.
Yeah Ben Mata put in an unreal performance. Few other players gave good accounts of themselves, Ngongotaha's Harlem Simiona did a good job of corralling wonderkid Raphael Lea'i who, while showing flashes of brilliance, was very sloppy on his international debut.
Big issue the Solomons manager will want to sort out is the speed at which they play. They're always hopped up in possession no matter where they have the ball, rushing simple passes and never deliberating their first touches, and this causes a lot of unnecessary turnovers. Need a lot of polish yet
Fiji lead New Caledonia 1-0 (Nalaubu 11 mins) at 65 mins. This would be an upset (on paper anyway - but who really knows with Island teams not playing for 2-3 years) I think if Fijians won.
Krishna is their only foreign based player from memory.
Edit - Finishes 2-1. Nalaubu with a late 89th min winner (assist Krishna).
Shame, going all that way to get covided out of the thing. At least they played in the Pacific Games in 2019 so it’s not such a long gap between games.
On the other hand, it gives a massive opportunity to the Cook Islands to get a semi place if they can get upset Tahiti. Even a draw might do it if the Solomons beat Tahiti by 3 goals.
Tournament has turned into a farce with Cook Islands now announcing they can't field a team either for their next match against Tahiti due to Covid in the camp.
At this rate, avoiding Covid is going to matter as much as scoring goals in this tourn! The qualifier might be the last team standing... As the favourite that's not good for NZ (although I hope at least most of our guys have probably already had the virus recently and less likely to be reinfected).
If a team (or both teams) making the final can't field a team due to Covid (and this applies to the the Concacaf qualifier later in the year too) I really hope they (e.g Oceania football/Fifa) have a well defined policy documented in advance.
Deciding when it happens, e.g if the match should be rescheduled, or defaulted, or some other criteria if both teams can't field a team (such as who got the most points in the group stage), will be open to an insane amount of corruption from Oceania and Fifa to pretty much pick/manipulate who gets though.
Fifa surely have thought about this likelyhood and have some rules/policy written down somewhere... right?
At this rate, avoiding Covid is going to matter as much as scoring goals in this tourn! The qualifier might be the last team standing... As the favourite that's not good for NZ (although I hope at least most of our guys have probably already had the virus recently and less likely to be reinfected).
If a team (or both teams) making the final can't field a team due to Covid (and this applies to the the Concacaf qualifier later in the year too) I really hope they (e.g Oceania football/Fifa) have a well defined policy documented in advance.
Deciding when it happens, e.g if the match should be rescheduled, or defaulted, or some other criteria if both teams can't field a team (such as who got the most points in the group stage), will be open to an insane amount of corruption from Oceania and Fifa to pretty much pick/manipulate who gets though.
Fifa surely have thought about this likelyhood and have some rules/policy written down somewhere... right?
Genuinely I feel like we're more likely to get screwed out of the spot by covid than actually bottle the tournament ourselves. I hope Danny and the team are keeping to extremely strict protocols with that in mind.
Thought Rojas played really well for Victory last night. Real shame he's not there getting game time with Wood to gel combinations. At the moment I rate him above Just and McCowatt from what I've seen lately. Commentators mentioned that he was on 'standby' for the OFC tournament. Not sure what that means. Same sit. as M Boxall.
Thought Rojas played really well for Victory last night. Real shame he's not there getting game time with Wood to gel combinations. At the moment I rate him above Just and McCowatt from what I've seen lately. Commentators mentioned that he was on 'standby' for the OFC tournament. Not sure what that means. Same sit. as M Boxall.
if his commitment is to club over country and his agent (dad) thinks playing against the island nations are a waste of time then he can stay in Aus - despite how good he can be I'd rather have players who want to be there getting game time for the AW's.
Thought Rojas played really well for Victory last night. Real shame he's not there getting game time with Wood to gel combinations. At the moment I rate him above Just and McCowatt from what I've seen lately. Commentators mentioned that he was on 'standby' for the OFC tournament. Not sure what that means. Same sit. as M Boxall.
Except Boxall was involved in Oct-Nov-Jan windows (maybe he missed one of them). He's also apparently 'nursing' a groin issue, and it's a long travel journey US-Qatar. Though yes he's still playing for Minny.
Rojas hasn't been involved with the AWs in nearly 2.5 years (Nov 2019). He needs to be in Qatar now, to build combinations with other players, understand Hay's playing style etc etc, esp given squad is much changed since 2017 WC campaign (host of younger guys now squad regulars).
From afar it almost seems like yes, he's turned down the AWs for his club, which seems strange in a WC year, when there are now plenty of young guys gunning for his 'spot'. Poppa (who went to a WC as a player) has to release him over this FIFA window, and if Rojas hasn't insisted he do that, well to me that's poor commitment yes to the national team.
Just caught up on a few games. While the overall team quality hasn’t changed much in the recent years, I’m loving the increase in flair and vision being showed by the players. Arguably the AWs are the least interesting team to watch because of lack of personality in their performance.
