Let’s not glorify Fiji football

Opinions / Analysis

FIJI national football team beat Solomon Islands in one of the two International Friendly games.

But is it something to glorify about.No, why?.The FIFA international friendly soccer match is incidentally an encounter between the two opposing national teams.

Essentially the matches are for coaches and managers to allow them to experiment and try out new players in the process before any competitive assignments.

The two legged series was anything but to gauge the strength and weakness and the areas that need improvements.While Fiji scored a 2-0 win in the second game, it was far from being a spectacular football on display.

The team lost 2-1 in a game at school.Alas, the coaching staff must have identified weaknesses.

The usual lack of artistry, cohesiveness, set-piece, clumsy in both attack and defence, and wobble at using the width and length of the pitch.

Football on a wane

Football in the country will never improve under the current administration and those servile commentators, former footballers and fans who sugarcoat progress is simply preposterous.

The two games have reaffirmed what the sport in Fiji is all about.

Structure, tactical shy

In the first game, Fiji, while many felt the team had more territorial advantage, what they fail to recognize is that Solomon’s possession footing outclassed the team.

Age factor

The Solomon’s averaged more touches in the series against Fiji’s disjointed far and few.And for a team that had a team of 24 year olds, goes to show the importance of early development, versus Fiji’s few, who continue to put time in the name of stardom.

Lack of confidence

Confidence is the other thing that Fijian footballers lack.With the ball, the players rushed play, or gave away possessions, without it they're movement shy.

They also fail to create options for teammates and worse is their positioning, timely runs, cover play and defending that comes down to the lack of technical and tactical abilities.

Weakness

The 2-1 loss in the first game exposed the weaknesses.

The loss raised the mechanics of the sport and that the beautiful game can’t be taught to grownups, it naturally comes with early development of elite footballers.But once learned at the developing age, it can be performed with a few easy key combinations.

Solomon’s style and guile

The Solomon’s tied a string of passes, confidently created game play mechanics of football, that is the triangular formation.

The ‘tri’ thus, gave them more options on the field, and exploited the confused Fiji team.

1980s, best football years

’Unless the sport gets to clone the 80s, footballers, the country will struggle to find its dominance in the sport.The period produced real ‘ballers’ who the Island Nations, Australia and New Zealand found to be fearsome and got beat.

The sports know-how's will attest to it.Today, there isn’t a player who has their vision, leadership, comradery and the winning mentality.For the FFA can glorify as much, the fact is the standard and Fifa ranking says it all.