Bula Baby Boys set sight on Peru
Nothing is impossible for the Digicel Bula Baby Boys as they set their sights on qualifying for the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Peru later this year.
The OFC U17 Championship kicks off next week and will be played on January 11-28 at the HFC Bank stadium in Suva and Fiji FA Academy grounds in Ba.
The Baby Bula Boys are drawn in Group A with Papua New Guinea,
Tonga, and Samoa.
They start their campaign against Samoa coming Wednesday (January 11) at 7pm at the HFC Bank stadium.
Fiji plays PNG in its second match on January 15 at 7pm and its final group match is up against Tonga on January 18 at 7pm.
Head coach Sunil Kumar said the team has come a long way to get to the championship.
“We have set a goal and that is to qualify for the World Cup and the Junior Bula Boys have set those standards to inspire these boys,” Kumar said.
“When these boys arrived in camp they were confident looking at their bigger brothers’ achievements.
“At the moment we are focusing on our first match against Samoa before we focus on the other teams. “We had to start from scratch and our technical director Timo Jankowski was also moving around Viti and Vanua Levu trying to identify the right players for the job.
“It was in October last year that we had a trial for the selected 44 players where we also had a few overseas based players.
“Our final trial camp was in November where we selected 23 players for the tournament.
“We now have four overseas based players and 19 local players. “Identifying the right talent was a challenge for us in the beginning but looking at the team now we have managed to get some good players in the squad.”