Stoke Defender Proud To Play For Fiji
After making his international debut for his country just last year, England based Stoke City midfielder Scott Wara is proud to represent Fiji at the OFC Men’s Olympic qualifier 2019 on home soil.
Wara made his debut from the bench in a 1-1 draw with the Solomon Islands at ANZ Stadium, Suva on September 5, 2018.
“I am 19 years old currently playing for Stoke City championship club in England,” he said. “Just come here for camp preparing for the Olympic qualifier and hopefully we can be successful and that’s really our main goal here.”
Born Fijian, the midfielder has fond memories of his journey up the ladder of professional football in England.
“I moved to England from a very early age, I think before my first birthday,
“I really had an interest in rugby originally but slowly through school mates I moved to football,” Wara revealed.
“We moved to Stoke at one point before I joined the club and then I got accepted into the academy.
“I went for trials and I got accepted in ever since then it’s just been great.
“I have been just going through the ranks and just learning, learning my trade, learning how to play football as a centre-back because originally I used to just play for fun but then become something I took very seriously.
“It’s great to be at Stoke, you train with some great players, very experienced players, players who played in the World Cup so it’s great to be around that kind of environment.” The young defender was identified by former Fijian football coach Christoper Gamel who called him up into the fold of the Fiji football set-up.
Like any other young footballer, Wara is wearing the Fiji jersey with pride.
“It means a lot to be representing my country first of all and to have a chance to go into the Olympic that’s not what many people can say they have done they are an Olympian.
“It’s definitely something that I have always dreamt about to be in the Olympic. To represent my country as well is a great honour to me, to my family we’ll be taking great pride in that,” he added. Playing at home in front of the home crowd, Wara believes the team bonding within the Fiji camp is positive. They won their Group B opener when they walloped Tonga 4-1 on Sunday.
“There is definitely there is good vibes around the camp, very positive vibes everybody is confident. The confidence is very high at the moment. I think that’s was the key going our first game. From now on we have to be confident and we have to make sure that we can get the results that we want and hopefully we can score some more goals “At the same time we’ll try to keep some clean sheet, hopefully,” he stressed.