Solomon Islands giant-killers Kossa FC thumped New Zealand Champs Waitakere City, 3-1, in the first leg of the O-League final in Honiara setting up a crunch finale in west Auckland on May 11.
The Solomon Islands are a game away from qualifying for the FIFA World Club Championship after their top side Kossa FC thumped New Zealand Champs Waitakere City FC 3-1 in the first leg of the O-League final played in Honiara.
The west Aucklanders return home faced with the daunting task of needing a minimum 2-0 victory over the Solomon Islanders in the return leg to defend their title, and return to the World Club Champs stage again to represent Oceania. That crunch match will be played at Trusts Stadium in Waitakere on 11 May with the Melanesian community in Auckland likely to be out in force to cheer the islanders on to what they hope will be an historic win. More importantly, it will take them a step closer to the World Club Champs in Japan in December and a guaranteed FIFA pay cheque of US$1 million for qualifying. That kind of money is gold for the struggling islanders.
But the island’s footballing nations have been in this position many times, and failed at the last hurdle. Last year, Fijian champs Ba were in the same position after beating Waitakere 2-1 in their first leg encounter. But despite dominating the return leg, the pressure got to them and they lost 1-0. Both teams had the same 2-2 aggregate, but Waitakere advanced courtesy of a valuable away goal.
Ba never recovered from that heartbreaking loss, failing to make this year’s final while Waitakere plugged away to make their second straight final. Kossa FC is a team stacked with internationals with a forward line to match any in the region.
Former Auckland player and Papua New Guinea striker Reg Davani partners up with Joe Luwi and world class beach soccer player James Naka in a lethal front line. The threesome terrorised Waitakere in last week’s first leg O-League final with a crowd of nearly 20,000 packed into Honiara’s Lawson Tama Stadium creating an intimidating atmosphere for the visiting Aucklanders, who had three Solomon Islands internationals of their own in their lineup; Benjamin Totori, Commins Menapi and George Suri.
The Solomons have been the flag bearers of Pacific islands football, or soccer as many people prefer to call it on this side of the world, for the past five years. They are the only island nation to compete in any football world championship, the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup – Oceania representatives on both occasions in 2006 and 2007 – and four years ago won the right, ahead of New Zealand, to play off against Australia for a place in the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, a 2-2 draw against the Australians their best
ever showing.
But if they succeed against Waitakere in two weeks time, their qualification will be the first an 11-a-side team from the islands has gone on to represent Oceania on the world stage. Since the formation of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) back in the 1960s, Australia and New Zealand have hogged the spoils with their bigger populations, resources and support networks. Australia’s departure (for the second time) from Oceania two years ago has given the island nations a better chance to negotiate the difficult FIFA qualification ladder with only New Zealand left standing in the way.
With FIFA looking closely at Oceania and their credibility on the world stage, a victory for Kossa would give football’s headquarters a massive boost in confidence in the Pacific.
