Tahiti looking east
United States may offer hope of progression for the tiny Pacific Islanders after their semi-final finish in the Oceania World Cup qualifiers
“Thanks, boys. We are proud of you!”
That was the message the staff of Tahiti’s national team, led by coach Samuel Garcia, left on the blackboard at the team hotel following their semi-final defeat to New Zealand in the Oceania qualifiers. They had been just two matches away from a spot among the 32 World Cup finalists.
Yet, it had been a strange minitournament. Tahiti hadn’t played a single game in almost three years, mainly because of the pandemic. Both the Cook Islands and Vanuatu withdrew from the competition due to COVID-19 outbreaks, and so, without a single win, Tahiti progressed to the last four in Doha, Qatar, where the qualifiers had been shifted to because of travel restrictions in Oceania.
After the1-0 defeat against the All Whites, some of the players enjoyed a drink at the hotel’s sports bar. In his room, replete with tactical line-ups, shirts and some cigarettes, coach Garcia, at the end of his contract with the Tahitian Football Federation (FTF), pondered the past, the present and the future. In the1990s, the former defender, with a spell at Girondins de Bordeaux under his belt, had moved to Tahiti to finish his career with AS Venus before pursuing a coaching career.
Today, Garcia’s former club AS Venus, as well as AS Dragon, AS Tefana and AS Pirae, the defending champions who participated in the recent Club World Cup, are the top clubs in the local top flight, an amateur league. The other eight clubs can’t compete, according to Garcia. Without a strong league, there can’t be a strong national team. He says: “The country, the communes no longer have the resources to invest, they don’t invest as much as in the past for economic reasons. The level of the league has dropped. It’s not balanced. That is not favourable for progress.”
The old, almost insurmountable problems of geography and isolation – Tahiti is a six-hour flight from New Zealand and seven hours from the United States – as well as the amateurism at club level won’t go away. Players spend the whole day at work before it’s time to train. Even the national team captain Teaonui Tehau works at a plastic factory. Alongside his cousins, the twin brothers Lorenzo and Alvin Tehau, he featured for Tahiti in the 2009 Under-20 World Cup in Egypt. In Group B they played Spain, Nigeria and Venezuela, conceding 21 goals in the process.
“It was the first time that Tahiti qualified and it was historic,” reflects Teaonui Tehau. “That changed our lives. We never thought that we were going to play a World Cup. We only watched it on TV. The fact of participating was something unforgettable. We made it click – everything was possible and we said that we wanted to relive those moments because those moments were unforgettable and magical.”
That maiden participation in the finals of a major tournament was transformative for the national team. Tahiti won the 2012 OFC
Cup and participated in the 2013 Confederations Cup, when four Tehaus were part of the squad. They were the whipping boys in Brazil, but the experience was priceless. Three years ago, the Tahitians were back at the Under-20 World Cup to cap off a golden decade.
The question is: what comes next? Can they sustain that success and aim even higher? Tehau quips that more of his family members are on the way: his younger brother Roonui played at the 2019 Under-20 World Cup in Poland, while Garcia also has confidence in the next generation. He singles out midfielder Terai Bremond, 20, striker Eddy Kaspard, 20, and Roonui from that team, as well as defender Francois Hapipi, 23. Kaspard and Hapipi are two of four squad members to ply their trade abroad, largely as semiprofessionals, while Bremond was released by Toulouse last summer. Garcia wants more Tahitians playing abroad, but the options are limited.
New Zealand’s top flight is amateur. The country’s only professional club, Wellington Phoenix, play in Australia, where the Men’s A-League has a maximum quota of five foreign players per club. The solution, according to Garcia, is to look east: “We are thinking to send young players to the United States, where they can study with a scholarship, play well and develop. That’s what we are thinking of today.”
His captain echoes his view. Tehau says: “Sending players to the United States could lift the level, and when they return to the national team the level can match that of New Zealand.”
Since Australia’s departure from Oceania, defeating New Zealand remains the Holy Grail. The All Whites are now the continental superpower, but Garcia, Tehau and the Tahitians know that the 48-team 2026 World Cup changes the equation. “We lost 1-0 against New Zealand,” says Garcia. “It wasn’t 8-0, 7-0. That must motivate the federation. Why? At U17 and U20, the OFC has two places for the World Cup. In 2026, we will have1.5 spots. The winner of the qualifiers will go directly and the second one will play the intercontinental play-off. We see that New Zealand is higher, that’s normal, but there is work to do.”
“Sending players to the United States could lift the level, and when they return to the national team the level can match that of New Zealand”
Tahiti captain Teaonui Tehau