Football on a wane, Mcfayden stars

Opinions / Analysis

IT’s no secret that Fijian football lacks creativity and worse, falls short on standard.

The sample of what the sport is, was on display during the Pacific Community Cup in New Zealand.

Fiji’s footballing giants,  Ba, Suva, Rewa and Labasa may be the teams with huge fan following, outside they’re pretty ordinary, shy on creativeness and flair that otherwise makes the sport beautiful.

And from pillar to post players lack showmanship, on display much of the same, unstructured and repetitive football.

The narrative that the inclusion of players who away with the national team to the Pacific Games would have been game changers is simply preposterous.

With them teams would have had remote chances against the USA, NZFFI and Manukau All Stars, who had an array of quality players.

The Community Cup’s football spectacle was displayed by the USA, a team rounded from across North America taught every team the tactical and technical know-how of the game.

Their style, guile and comrade catapulted into enthralling-football, alas losing against Manukau All Stars in a dreaded semi final shootout.

It was a pure joy to watch them put on a clinic and teach teams the beautiful game.

Oliver Mcfayden, the 21-year old who was not considered for the U20 Junior Bula Boys team to the FIFA U20 World Cup in Argentina because of in-house politics, was the tournament's live wire.

A standout, who would have made all the difference in the U20, that suffered heavy losses in Argentina.

An embarrassing 9-0 to Ecuador, 4-0 to Slovakia in its opening match and 3-0 to USA in its last game shows the lack of character in quality the team had.

The Oliver show was before FFA honchos and commentators, who witnessed some true artist with a ball at his feet, a player who entertained and got the fans off their seats.

The youngster’s understanding of the game, skills and confidence is at another level, something Fijian footballers lag.

The England born, with roots to Fiji was willing to represent the country with all his heart and in honour of his grandfather, a Fijian.

Oliver represented the England schoolboys team, he was invited for a tryout with the U-20 Junior Bula Boys team in 2021.

“You would think the FFA would do everything to get Oliver a passport, but they rode it, later advising that he had missed out on the qualification by a few months and subsequently the immigration had suspended his stay in the country," said Jay Mcfaydn, Oilver’s father in an earlier interview with Sportsone.

And while NZFFI and Manukau All Stars played the finals, with NZFFA winning it 1-0, all the talk was about USA and Oliver, who just scored big in the eyes of the fans, footballers and coaches.

Fiji Football Association isn’t worried about the sport, much less Fifa ratings, which drops by the new release.

While the FFA parades its success on social media, there’s not even a moment to think otherwise.

Football, under the administration will never improve and sadly the country will remain beat in the Oceania region.

And for good measures the Pacific Games, performance tells a story.