February 24, 2023
The Oceania Champions League has been running since 2007 and has been won 12 times by sides from New Zealand and once each from clubs from Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia. This year’s winners get the right to play in the 2023 FIFA Club World Cup in Saudi Arabia later this year.
The format of this year’s competition is that the 7 “developed” countries in the region ( New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Tahiti ) enter two teams, typically the previous season’s champions and runners-up, who play each other twice in National qualifiers to determine that association’s representative in the group stages. The 4 “developing” nations ( Samoa, American Samoa, Cook Islands and Tonga ) enter their champions who all play each other on a round robin basis in the Preliminary Group to produce one side to complete the eight group qualifiers.
This year’s qualifying stage is being held in Apia at the Football Federation of Samoa’s national headquarters, with the four competing sides being Lupe Ole Soaga SC from hosts Samoa, Tupapa Maraerenga FC from the Cook Islands, Veitongo from Tonga and Ilaoa and To’omata from American Samoa.
Samoa’s national side are 191st in FIFA’s world rankings but they have not played a match since before the pandemic, when they played in the 2019 Pacific Games. Soaga’s squad today had 4 players from that tournament, captain and centre-back Andrew Setefano ( 15 caps ), defender Lawrie Latutusa ( 5 caps ), and midfielders Vaa Taualai ( 2 caps ) and Lapalapa Toni ( 6 caps ). Their line-up included 31 year-old English forward Jared Cunniff, who has played for Newport Pagnell Town and St Ives Town, plus two New Zealanders, midfielder Jamie Mason and centre-back Harrison Bolton-Roberts.
The Cook Islands are just above Samoa in the FIFA rankings at 189. They have played only one match since 2015, losing 0-2 to the Solomon Islands in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers but they had to pull out of the rest of the competition following an outbreak of Covid in their camp. Tupapa’s starting XI featured four players from that match, midfielders Grover Harmon ( 11 caps ) and Lee Harmon ( 1 cap ), right-back Dwayne Tiputoa ( 1 cap ) and winger Taylor Saghabi ( 11 caps and 6 goals ). Centre-back Sergio Sendra was born in Spain, forward Jake McCoy comes from New Zealand, and midfielder Aaron Simpson is Fijian.
Tupapa began their campaign with a narrow 1-0 victory over Veitongo thanks to a 9th minute penalty, whilst Soaga thumped Ilaoa 13-0 with 20 year old Michael Leo, considered to be the rising star of Samoan football, grabbing 5 goals. Tupapa then took their turn to hammer hapless Ilaoa 8-0 before Soaga impressively triumphed 9-0 over Veitongo to set up a decisive final encounter between the two sides with 100% records. The margins of Soaga’s wins made them short-odds favourites to progress to the group stages but Soaga had never beaten Tupapa in the Champions League, losing in 2018 and drawing in 2020, but a draw today would be good enough to qualify for the next stage being held in Vanuatu in May.
The game was scheduled for a 16.00 local time kick-off according to the Oceania FC website but was brought forward to 15.00 after the decision to cancel the earlier scheduled third place match to preserve the condition of the pitch for the decisive tie after overnight rain and heavy storms during the day. Indeed, when the match began it was still raining with strong winds.
Tupapa were playing in black and white stripes with black
shorts, whereas Soaga were in a green and yellow shirt, with green shorts. The
referee was from Vanuatu, with two assistants from New Zealand. The match was streamed live on both the Oceania FC website and Eleven Sports.
The ground consisted of a small stand where the main camera was located, with a grass bank with a scoreboard and tent on the opposite side. There was also a tree-lined grass bank behind one goal, with more trees, a two-tier pavilion and a medical tent behind the other goal. Tall floodlights were located in each corner.
Tupapa started strongly and with less than 2 minutes played, Simpson won the ball just inside the Soaga half and played a good pass to put McCoy clear, but the pony-tailed New Zealand could only shoot straight at keeper Savelio from just inside the area. One early feature was the battle between the two tall New Zealanders, McCoy and Bolton-Richards. McCoy went to ground inside the Soaga area but the referee was unmoved, giving the impression that diving exists even at this level.
Lupe’s Mason sent an ambitious 25 yard effort to test the keeper, but Pierre easily made the catch before the home side’s first clear chance was created in the 14th minute. Mason made a strong run down the right, and his cross found Talilai unmarked 8 yards out, but he blazed wildly over. A minute later, Leo’s pass with the outside of his left foot was flicked on by Cunniff to put Toni clear, but his attempt from 10 yards was weak and saved by Pierre at the second attempt.
The first yellow card was shown in the 17th minute when Setefano chopped down Simpson just out side his area, from which Saghabi’s free-kick was glanced wide by Sendra.
As the rain started to get heavier, Soaga opened the scoring. Tupapa centre-back Wichman slipped attempting to make a clearance and Cunniff pounced to lift left-footed over the keeper from inside the 6 yard box. It was a cool finished by the multi-tattooed Englishman.
Soaga started to dominate. Saghabi was booked for a niggly foul on Bolton-Roberts, Viliamu sent a 25 yarder just wide and Sione’s 35 yard rocket was held at the second attempt by Pierre.
A potential turning point occurred in the 36th minute. Mason hauled McCoy to the floor and a melee followed. When order was restored, the referee showed yellow cards to Mason and Sendra, and then a second yellow to Setefano, who had to go off.
Soaga re-organised by moving Viliamu from left-back to the centre of the defence, with Toni dropping to full-back, and undeterred, Mason steered a volley narrowly wide from Talilai’s left-wing cross. With just about the last piece of action of the half, Saghabi’s corner hit the far post and rebounded back into play to deny the visitors an equaliser.
The rain stopped just before the interval, but the pitch was showing signs of cutting up. Soaga went into the break with a deserved 1-0 lead but the red card would having given the Cook Islanders hope they could turn the match around in the second half.
However, the Samoans started the second period as if it was they that had the extra player. Leo skipped past two defenders but put his left-footed shot over, Talilai’s long distance attempt was caught by the keeper, and an even longer effort from Leo bounced a few yards wide.
The seemingly inevitable second goal arrived in the 54th minute. Leo’s through ball put Cunniff in space, and after going past Wichman he looked likely to score, but Pierre was able to push the shot away. The loose ball fell to Talilai who tucked the ball away to make it 2-0.
With the weather improving, 20 or so supporters ventured from under cover to watch on the grass bank behind the goal Soaga were attacking and they were rewarded with a third goal, although it came from a disastrous error by the Tupapa guardian. Cunniff’s cross looked straight-forward enough but inexplicably Pierre dropped the ball to give Mason a tap-in. Perhaps he had been watching a video of Brighton goalie Robert Sanchez against Crystal Palace !
The result was now decided and Soaga felt comfortable enough to swop their goal-keepers. Tupapa did briefly threaten, but after Porter’s first time shot from the edge of the box was blocked by Bolton-Roberts, McCoy slapped the rebound just wide from around 8 yards.
Soaga looked the more likely side to score the next goal though, and Cunniff turned and shot just wide, but with just over 10 minutes remaining Leo’s super defence splitting through ball enabled substitute Letutusa run on and finish from 15 yards to make it 4-0.
Grover Harmon did put the ball into the Soaga net, but the goal was ruled out for a push, after which it was Cunniff’s turn to produce the defence splitting pass, this time putting Leo clear to slip the ball past the advancing keeper. 5-0 after 81 minutes.
Sloppy defending by Viliamu gave Tupapa a consolation goal with 3 minutes remaining, passing straight to Tuakana, who laid the ball off to Trego for a strong right footed strike into the top corner from just inside the 18 yard line.
The home side weren’t finished though and they added two more goals in added time. Cunniff skilfully beat two defenders to be one-on-one with the keeper and sent him the wrong way to make it 6-1, and then the English forward unselfishly teed-up Matau to fire into the roof to the net.
In the end the 7-1 score-line, with 4 goals in the last 11 minutes, flattered the Samoan champions and was harsh on Tupapa. However, Soaga were fully deserved winners and made light of the handicap of having to over 50 minutes with a man less. In particular, Cunniff, Bolton-Richards and Leo were the outstanding players in the match.
Highlights : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai9i4zXIMt4
Lupe Ole Soaga SC : Savelio ( Tafili ) – Sione, Setefano, Bolton-Richards, Viliamu – Toni ( Apelu ), Taualai ( Matau ), Mason, Talilai ( Letutusa L ) – Leo, Cunniff
Tupapa Maraerenga FC : Pierre – Tiputoa, Sendra, Wichman, Kaufononga – Saghabi ( Tuteru ), Simpson ( Porter ), Harmon G, Harmon L, Taokia ( Tuakana ) – McCoy ( Trego )
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