Soccer focus

THE stage is set today for a battle of wits when Labasa and Suva play in the final of the Fiji Football Association Cup Tournament (Fiji FACT) at Lawaqa Park in Sigatoka.

It is interesting when you consider the fact that we have a team from the North and one from the South playing the final in the West.

Defending champions Suva face a Labasa side that seems to be slowly finding its feet at the top end of the domestic competition.

Ten goals were scored in entertaining semi-finals yesterday, when Suva and Labasa overcame Lautoka and Ba respectively to book their tickets in the final.

Suva edged Lautoka 2-1 while Labasa came back from 2-nil down to beat Ba 4-3.

Now experts are suggesting that if the semi-finals are anything to go by, we can expect a cracker of a final today.

Fiji FA chief executive officer Mohammed Yusuf said fans pushed their teams to the limit and that stood out yesterday.

“We saw 10 goals in the two semi-finals which really hyped up things at Lawaqa Park,” Yusuf said.

The Fiji FACT final kicks off at 3pm. The winner of the final will walk away $17,000 rich while the runnerup will get $5000. Ba and Lautoka will receive $1000 each for reaching the semi-finals.

In saying that, we again raise the important issue of putting in place processes that should see us compete at the next FIFA World Cup.

Our foray at the qualification rounds in Qatar earlier this year did not go as we would have wanted it to.

We defeated New Caledonia but then lost our next two games, to New Zealand and Papua New Guinea to drop out of the competition.

It certainly wasn’t something fans had hoped for. But then again, that’s just the harsh reality of our game.

Soccer fans in Fiji will no doubt be hoping that the sport will inch its way out of the doldrums so to speak and get a footing among the big boys at the highest level of the sport.

That will mean putting in place measures and processes that must see us get through the qualification rounds and get into the FIFA World Cup.

Hope can be a great motivator.

We are now sitting on 165 on the FIFA World ranking, with New Caledonia sitting on 160, PNG sitting on 162, and Tahiti on 164, all ranked higher than us. Vanuatu though are on 166.

The Solomon Islands are ranked quite high on 137 and New Zealand are on 101, the highest ranked in our area of competition.

As we look forward with anticipation to today’s final at the FACT, fans will do so with enthusiasm, hoping for some great soccer action.

Our challenge though must be to get our game on to the highest pedestal.

May the best team win today.

FRED WESLEY