Participants treated to traditional welcome

The ceremony, held at the Sénat Coutumier headquarters in Nouville this afternoon, was overseen by two representatives from New Caledonia’s North Province; Armand Goroboredjo and Samuel Goromido.One of the key roles of the Sénat Coutumier is to be consulted on all matters related to the country and its future, and includes greeting visiting groups like…

www.oceaniafootball.com looks at Papua New Guinea’s Class of 2014 as they prepare to take on Venezuela U-15 and Slovakia U-15 in Nanjing. Coached by Margaret Aka, Papua New Guinea U-15 Girls’ national team has a tough task ahead if they wish to go one step further than four years ago.Drawn in a difficult section with…

While it is the tenth edition of this competition, it is just the second time the Invitational moniker has been applied, allowing organisers to extend an invite to be extended to teams from the Asian Football Confederation.After making their debut in Oceania at last year’s event, Malaysia will once again be eyeing the ultimate regional…

Jacquemet says the visit proved worthwhile but also showed that there was much work ahead of both Member Associations if they wished to show improvement. “Lifting the standard of the quality of players is important and player development needs to start as soon as possible. There is a need to focus on technical skills and…

Playing without injured captain Katie Bowen, the Junior Football Ferns battled gamely against the 2012 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup champions but couldn’t produce the regular attacking threat which brought Thursday’s 2-0 win over Paraguay.Kadidiatou Diani’s 20th minute strike opened the scoring and France went on with the task in the second period with Claire…

Les Bleuettes, as they are known, achieved their best placing of fourth in the 2008 edition and while they may not have managed a victory at this level their U-17 Women’s World Cup title in 2012 is far from a distant memory.One player who was there for that highlight in French women’s football is Griede…

As such, it would hardly have been unexpected if Katie Bowen and Steph Skilton had brushed off questions about New Zealand never having made it past this tournament’s group phase. Such a record could, after all, be written off as the burden of previous U-20 generations and irrelevant to this current crop of Junior Ferns.But…

The Oceania trio of referee Finau Vulivuli of Fiji and assistant referees Jacqueline Stephenson and Sarah Walker, both of New Zealand, will be taking charge of their first match of the tournament.The trio have been assigned the Group C encounter between England and Mexico which gets underway at 2pm (local) in Moncton.Vulivuli is quite an…

Both sides put in their all to bring the first half to a close locked at 1-1, but two simple mistakes from U-15 goalkeeper Selson Toara in the second half aided the older side in finding the back of the net twice more.Despite the disappointment of a loss, Poida says the side’s aims have not…

The event – the second consecutive invitational futsal tournament run by OFC – will feature four Oceania nations; New Zealand, New Caledonia, Tahiti and Vanuatu as well as one special guest from the Asian Football Confederation, last year’s runners-up Malaysia.The Futsal Whites finished third in the 2013 tournament held at the Trusts Stadium in Henderson…