Picture tells a thousand words

Local Sports

Former Fijian footballer, Ronald Chaudhary: Fb/sports shareA staged photo-shoot of a former footballer on a dug up field wasn’t all about football opinion.

The picture was about reliving good times, but sure enough it opened up a whole new dialogue that put football know-hows on notice.

Ronald Chaudhary’s animation at Buckhurst Park drew fevrent into timeline, it worked up Gurjit Singh, a former Fiji coach.

Singh didn't hold back to air his bottled- up frustration on the 80s football.

“Look at the surface of the field these days, national team training at that field. This is one reason Fiji players were not able to keep possession for long, now we have football academy fields for training national teams, it makes a big difference.”

If only the success story of the era didn’t breeze the district trotting coach, what did.

For the period was regarded as the best footballing years for the country, who was dominant in regional football.

The history shy needed to be reminded that it was on the very same field that Fiji beat Australia 1-0 in 1977, and again in 1988 with the same score at Nadi’s Prince Charles Park, which isn't the best of fields in the country but Rudi Gutendorf coached team recorded the historic 3-0 win against Newcastle United in 1985.

The success rode on the back of great local coaches, gems of footballers and on endurance, grit and determination.

And the games were played in style, guile, possession and artistry, which made the sport beautiful.

During the period the national football team beat Island Nations and scored wins against New Zealand in 1980 (4-0),1983 (2-0),1984 (1-1) and 1988 (1-0) and capped off the decade with back to back 1988-1989, Melanesian Cup wins.

The English Premier League club, Newcastle United was made to look ordinary on the day as Fiji ran a clinic before a sellout crowed.

The confidence was in possessional football, delightful and in the game against Newcastle United defender Henry Dyer and goalkeeper Savenaca Waqa played the ball to each other for a couple of minutes.

“We did this passing to each other for a couple of minutes, by this time Newcastle United had fallen back in defence because of our attack,” Dyer said in 2014.

“Because of what we had done, me and the goalkeeper, this made the crowd shout and cheer for us because we had controlled the game.”

Singh’s comment suits to convince that the state of the art facility has helped the standard of football in the country.

He needs to take a look in the rear view mirror to see the trail of failures, the fact is that football has declined from training to development of élite footballers.

And besides, Fiji finds it hard to beat Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Solomon in recent times, and for knowledge the last time they beat New Zealand was 2008, with a 2-0 win in the World Cup qualifiers.

Local Coaches

Under John Lal, Sashi Mahendra Singh, Mani Naicker and Billy Singh, the country produced great results, without the luxury of state of art facilities.

They coached teams that stringed high 8-9 passes at a time, scored on set plays and defended like a well overstretched symphony.

For them football was about possession, they correlated by tactical and technical aspects of the game and knotted in good strategy and structure.

The historical records were on a higher percentage of ball possession that helped better results in their matches.

Tri-Nations Friendlies

The recent Tri-Nations friendlies exposed Fiji’s weaknesses.

The team fell far short on the basics, passes, passing accuracy and shots.

The statistics from Fiji’s two games, against Solomon and Hong Kong/ China, aren't all that impressive.

Under modern day paid coaches, the team could barely connect 3-4 passes.

The team failed to maintain possession, allowing the opponent to hold time on the ball, limiting their ability to create goal-scoring opportunities.

There wasn’t any set play, movement with and without the ball and communication.

All of which isn’t the best reflection on head coach Rob Sherman and the facilities at FFA academy.

It seems with all that and more, Fiji has run into bigger potholes than the ones seen in the picture.

For the 80s football was the best, and there’s just no comparison.