Tonga Football Association (TFA) is poised to host a newly-developed OFC tournament that will give smaller Pacific nations an opportunity to qualify for the O-League, which has traditionally included only the heavyweights of Oceania.
The 2013 O-League Preliminary kicks off at Loto-Tonga Centre tomorrow with the club champions of American Samoa, Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga competing for the chance to play-off against New Caledonia’s Mont-Dore, who finished the 2012 season with fewer points than any other side.
Tonga’s Lotoha’apai United will host Pago Youth of American Samoa, Tupapa Maraerenga of Cook Islands and Samoan club Kiwi in a round-robin competition from May 1 to 5 before the play-off against Mont-Dore on May 8.
The winner will join clubs from Fiji, New Zealand (2), Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tahiti and Vanuatu in the seventh edition of the O-League.
Hosts Lotoha’apai are quietly confident after an intensive training schedule led by coach Timote Polovili.
“We have been working on our game plan and I believe that things will fall into good shape come the tournament,” says Polovili.
The squad includes several members of the U-23 national team that competed in last month’s Olympic qualifier, while former Tonga captain Kilifi Uele is set to spearhead the defence.
As with all participating teams, Lotoha’apai have never competed in the O-League but they did feature in the forerunning OFC Club Championship on four occasions.
Samoa title holders Kiwi are the only other team to have appeared in that competition, losing out to Tahiti’s Venus and Fijian club Nadi in Group B of the 1999 edition.
Kiwi coach Phineas Young says they are relishing the chance to have a shot at O-League glory.
“As soon as we found out that we would be going to the O-League Preliminary we started to prepare,” says Young, who recently led Samoa’s campaign at the OFC U-20 Women’s Championship in Auckland.
“We can¹t wait for the tournament to get underway and I am confident that we will do well. We are not only representing our club but the whole of Samoa.”
Pago Youth have won back-to-back titles in the American Samoa national league and coach Ailao Tualaulelei Sr believes he has a strong squad at his disposal.
“We are very thankful for this opportunity and are looking forward to competing against these other three teams,” Tualaulelei says.
“We have a lot of experienced players on our team, players that have competed in the American Samoa national teams. These are the players that we will lean on to guide our team during the competition.”
Meanwhile Cook Islands representatives Tupapa have also been gearing up for the tournament with head of delegation John Paul Wilson saying the team is looking forward to the challenge.
The tournament kicks off at 1:00pm on Tuesday with Pago Youth taking on Kiwi before Lotoha’apai square off against Tupapa at 3:30pm. Coverage of the tournament will be provided on oceaniafootball.com as well as facebook.com/OFCfootball, twitter.com/OFCfootball and youtube.com/OFCfootball.
For the full schedule click here
For the team lists click here