Daily Archives: July 1, 2024

By Coen Lammers

Football fans are currently enjoying a smorgasbord of action from Euro 2024 and the Copa America, but in the outer reaches of the football map, in the tiny island nation of Vanuatu, Oceania is serving up its own wonderful and unique football flavours.

On Sunday, Vanuatu and New Zealand will square off for the Oceania Football Confederation Nations Cup, the pinnacle event in this part of the world and the stadium will heave with excitement.

The stadiums in Germany have been bouncing with fans from all over Europe, but few of those crowds will match the near-fanatical masses packing into the Freshwater Stadium in Port Vila the past two weeks.

OFC Nations Cup matches, especially those involving the host team, have been the hottest tickets in town, and the 7,000 tickets sell out within a couple of hours. That figure represents the official capacity, but with thousands of youngsters under 12 getting free entry, there is barely a spare blade of grass left.

The locals know that need to get there early if you want one of the 1,500 seats in the covered stands, and are usually filled two or three hours before kick-off, bringing their own lunches and leaving behind a mountain of peanut shells.

Normal rules, of course, do not apply to local VIPs who want to bask in the glory of Vanuatus pinnacle event.

With every seat already filled, the unannounced late arrival of Ministers with their entourage has been causing some major juggling acts and diplomacy for the local organisers, trying to keep the officials and the paying punters happy.

An estimated 10,000 packed VFF Freshwater Stadium for Vanuatus dramatic semi-final win over Fiji, which is a quarter of the population of Port Vila, with thousands more watching from rooftops, car trunks, woodpiles and any other form of elevation.

To say Vanuatu is football-mad would be an understatement, and the nation has been proud and grateful to host their first-ever OFC Nations Cup to commemorate the 90-year anniversary of the VFF.

The insolvency of Air Vanuatu threw a late spanner in the works and forced part of the tournament to be moved to Fiji, but would not stop the enthusiastic local organising committee from pulling out all stops to make their guests feel welcome.

Vanuatu and its football federation have significant economic and logistical challenges, that would make football administrators in other countries curl up in the foetal position, but the tournament has so far been gone off without any major glitches.

Some teams raised concerns about the quality of the training pitches, which highlights one of the major challenges Vanuatu football faces for their own development.

Aside from the FIFA-funded Freshwater Stadium, other venues are run by the local government and the pitches are not always their top priority, while the broadleaved island grass makes it difficult to create a smooth surface.

The ground staff at Freshwater tried to grow a pitch with thinner grass like players are used to in New Zealand, only to see the local grass take over in a matter of weeks.

The best training pitch on the main island of Efate turned out to be at the Montmarte School, far in the hills above Port Vila, surrounded by dense tropical bush which can only be reached after some serious off-roading.

The All Whites used Montmarte as their training base, where the support staff got a bit of a fright in their first session, retrieving wayward balls from the bushes and being confronted by huge spiders, allegedly the size of small dogs.

As a result, some of the balls were left behind in the bush for the local school kids to retrieve, and the shooting drills were moved to the other goal.

As coach Darren Bazeley had predicted, the OFC Nations Cup was an eye-opener for some of the New Zealand professionals, cramped into mini-buses, playing on unfamiliar surfaces, against unfamiliar teams and having to get changed in a wooden shed outside the main stadium for the semi-final, because the two main dressing rooms were used for the second semi-final.

This is back to basics. Some of these guys havent seen a shed like this since they played in the under-14s, joked one of the Kiwi support staff.

To their credit, the young All Whites squad and their coaches took their new surroundings in their stride without complaints and focused on getting the job done.

Many of the squad had experienced football in the islands during previous U-17 and U-20 campaigns and went out of their way to engage with the locals, shake hands and pose for selfies wherever they travelled.

Instead of being intimidated, the All Whites seemed to feed off the energy of the raucous crowd, who were only a couple of metres from the playing surface, embracing Vanuatu and its football passion.

The script for the tournament could not have been better, with the local heroes making their first-ever final against the overwhelming favourites from New Zealand.

Whatever the result on Sunday, the final will be the biggest day in the annals of Vanuatu football and possibly the most famous day in the history of the friendly island nation.

READ MORE: Vanuatu make history to reach Sundays OFC Mens Nations Cup final>>>>

Games to be played on Sunday June 30, 2024

Play-off for third place

Tahiti v Fiji VFF Freshwater Stadium, Port Vila, Vanuatu, 12pm (NZT)

Final

New Zealand v Vanuatu VFF Freshwater Stadium, Port Vila, Vanuatu, 4pm (NZT)

This story was first published on June 30, 2024

Coen Lammers is a long-time football enthusiast and writer. Based in Canterbury, hes followed and reported on football around the world.

Original post:

Oceania's pinnacle event becomes a showcase for true football passion - Friends of Football

Ahead of the OFC Nations Cup final, both New Zealand and Vanuatu have players in serious doubt to make the big fixture.

Both New Zealands Darren Bazeley and Vanuatus Juliano Schmeling have key figures who may not make the final, they both confirmed at the pre-match press conference ahead of Sundays final.

For NZ it is Tim Payne, who hobbled off the pitch in the semi final against Tahiti.

Tims in recovery process today. Hes getting medical attention today. So well find out later how serious that injury is.The medical department dont make quick decisions until theyve really diagnosed it properly. Ill probably know by the time I get back to the hotel how hes feeling, Bazeley said on Football in Oceanias question about the teams injury situation.

But apart from that, were in pretty good shape. Everyones recovered. And weve got a bit of a quiet day today where theyre doing some recovery. But we should be at full strength.

For his counterpart, Schmeling, he had to see Bong Kalo coming off the field in the first half in their semi final. And the playmaker is unlikely to make the big game.

At the moment, were still in that phase of investigating, try to see the doctor and see whats the real situation of Bong. He got a very small chance to be part of the final, to be honest, at this stage. But well see the results. And start getting more clear this afternoon in his situation. Apart from him, I think we are pretty much at full strength, taking Bong out of the list, Schmeling said.

Both coaches now look forward to an exciting final, with both praising the other. Bazeley says he saw a performance full of heart in Vanuatus match against Fiji.

I thought they played some really good football and was brave in possession. You know, when you look at the two teams,Vanuatu was a team, you know, trying to play out from the back and trying to play through the thirds and to try and get it to those tricky wingers they have that I thought performed very well on the day.

I think us and Vanuatu are the teams that have progressed quite nicely through the tournament. In regards to each game, probably stepping up and getting slightly better each performance.

Schmeling knows his Vanuatu side will need to pull off a small miracle to get the win, but he has found some weaknesses in the NZ team, but he is for obvious reason not sharing them.

We have analyzed them but we are not able to say something to you. Especially because theyre next to me as well, he said, inciting a round of laughs from the attending media.

So, we know the challenge we have and yeah, they have special players, but the structure they have is a very disciplined team, definitely have some strength. And we try to do our best. Therefore, like I said, for Sunday, we need to do a perfect game with no individual mistakes. If we can do that, we know that our group will fight to keep going, fighting like they did yesterday. And why not dream for the title?

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A passion for everything football and especially in Oceania. Owner of Football in Oceania.

Continued here:

Coaches update on injuries ahead of thrilling final - Football in Oceania