Ceremony impresses coach as they eye Oceania qualifiers
The Digicel Fijian football squad members conducted a flag raising ceremony at the Fiji Football Association Academy in Ba yesterday to mark Fiji Day.
This impressed head coach Flemming Serritslev.
He said the players showed their pride to do their country proud.
“I’m proud of these boys for honouring the national flag in the way they did,” Serritslev told SUNsports.
“I’m 100 per cent sure that the boys will give everything when it comes to a (international) match.”
The national football team are in camp to prepare for the Oceania qualifiers to the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
The Oceania qualifiers will be staged in Qatar in March.
Serritslev also pointed out that the Vanua Levu-based players are also training.
“They are having two training sessions a day with my assistant coach Sanaila Bera, especially during these tough times with COVID restrictions still in place.”
However, he was confident that things will change soon with the players joining them in Viti Levu.
“It will be interesting to see where their fitness stands when they come over,” he added.
Meanwhile, the All Whites have won their first match back in international football for almost two years.
A strong first half has helped New Zealand to a 2-1 win over the small Caribbean nation of Curacao in Bahrain yesterday.
According to Radio New Zealand, the All Whites opened the scoring in just the ninth minute when a free-kick from defender Bill Tuiloma took a deflection off the wall and went in.
New Zealand’s slick start continued and shortly after the half-hour they stole the ball in the Curacao half before captain Chris Wood produced a clinical finish to make it 2-0.
In muggy conditions of more than 30 degrees, the All Whites struggled to continue their dominance in the second half and with around 20 minutes to play a defensive error allowed Curacao to pull a goal back through striker Rangelo Janga.
Despite applying pressure, though, Curacao never truly threatened to grab an equaliser as New Zealand held on to win their first match since November, 2019.
The match was the first of two on the trip for an All Whites without any New Zealand or Australianbased players due to Covid travel restrictions.
They played tournament hosts Bahrain on Wednesday.