IF football is about passing and possession then three teams have learnt the art of the beautiful game.
The 2024 Battle of Giants winner Lautoka, 2025 Fiji FACT champions Labasa and 2024 League champions Rewa are known for intricate passing patterns, constant movement, and focus on controlling the game through ball retention.
The treble district plays with confidence and their soft touches find space in the tightest of situations.
Lautoka
The reigning champions have been consistent in the last few league games and sit 3rd on the league table.
The team needs to stand its ground in the face of Saula Waqa and Sitiveni Cauvalat’s suspensions over drug use.
Season campaigners Zibraaz Sahib and Iliotama Jese have their work cut out for leading a mixture of young and experience team.
Labasa
Labasa is at the lion’s den, the raucous hometown fans will form the biggest backdrop as the team will find joy in the game.
The 2025 Fiji FACT champions have good ball players, and with Christopher Wasasala, Rusiate Doidoi, Molea Tigi and Eparama Morica have wheels to outpace opponents.
Sitting second on the league table, double trophy hunt is all the team will be eyeing for.
Rewa
Rewa has mastered the art of positional football.
With experience riding on the back, Seteriki Huges, coach cum player Tevita Waranivalu and John Orobulu and company would hit neat swivels with soft feet to awe football fans.
Rewa fort the league table and is ready to redeem its agonizing 4-3 Fiji FACT shootout defeat to Labasa in the final.
Suva, Nadi, Nadroga, Ba and Navua
The rest of the premier teams lag in connecting a string of passes, cohesion, worse they look to the only option which is to launch a long ball looking for men up top.
That is with a hope the strikers use their strength, hold it up and then smash the ball, and that without a target.
Unless these teams improve on the technical and tactical know-how of the game, much of what was seen during the Fiji FACT will be replicated in the BOG tournament.
Coaches call
It is, though the coaches’ job to find the technical and tactical mix for the greater good of the game.
Great coaches have the knowledge to identify technical players and a team’s ability to perform on the field.
And they read the games, use the tactics and act accordingly.
Most football coaches in the country are’ game watches’, Nadi coach Raj Dayal, Ronil Kumar and Varun Lal, including Babs Khan being the senior-most coach fail to strategize.
For coaches to be successful, they must understand the essentials of the tactical and technical mix for the game.
The terms “technical” and “tactical” are opposite but when both are done well, they make a team near impossible to beat.
Brazil’s 2002, World Cup-winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari writes in his 2004 biography, ‘My Tactical and Technical Win’, that he said play smart, read the game and do not be a fan.
“There are many tactics teams have to use, tiki-taka (passing and exploiting space), and “parking the bus” (all-out defence), the Brazilian style”.
“It all comes down to chemistry, but without technique, it is almost impossible for tactics to work efficiently”.
But how often do coaches in the country relate to Scolari’s and other great coaches’ tips, as Fiji doesn’t have much choice when it comes to good coaches.
For the standard of football to improve in the country, coaches need to improve in the technical and tactical areas, only then will the sport be labelled as the beautiful game.
For flair and verve Lautoka, Labasa and Rewa are the country’s three best footballing districts, and the 2025 BOG is within reach.
