Goals For: 2, Goals Against: 46

Sometimes I just don’t understand the world. I am drafting this sitting on a Jetstar flight bound for Queenstown after two weeks in Auckland coaching at the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) Under 17’s Championship, which doubled as the region’s World Cup Qualifiers for this year’s FIFA Under 17 World Cup. Sitting in the row in front of me is one of the most gorgeous girls I have ever seen. Sitting next to her is her boyfriend - a white, European version of Erkel. As I said, sometimes I just don’t understand the world.

What I do understand is that Tongan football needs a lot of work. You may gather from the title that we got thrashed in all four of our games at the tournament and that on the surface it would be impossible to describe the Tongan performance at the tournament a success, but I think it was. While we lost 8-0 to Tahiti, 15-0 to the Solomon Islands, 17-0 to New Caledonia and 6-2 to the Cook Islands (and I have never lost like that before ever in my life!) our performances at the tournament have opened the eyes of the people that count at the OFC and within the Tongan Football Association (TFA) that the current way of doing things cannot continue.

Let me put our results into perspective. For each game I was forced to field a minimum of three to six players that were aged 13-15. Each team we played against fielded sides with 16 year olds, as expected at an U17 tournament. My boys had never played in fast, tough, competitive matches of this kind and had five weeks of proper football training under their belts. All of our opposition, including the Cook Islands, were trained in national academies since the age of ten and had played in competitive matches their whole lives. We didn’t stand a chance. All the players we came up against were not only vastly technically superior (i.e. they knew how to control, pass, play accurate long passes, defend in one on one situations etc) but they clearly understood the game. The opposition were always one (or five) steps ahead of us. My boys would react to situations rather than anticipate situations. It would take a long ball to be played over our defence for them to turn and chase rather than anticipating the long ball (through reading the game) and defending appropriately as a unit to counter the threat. No matter how much you train, you cannot substitute the value of matches in developing a player’s understanding of the game.

Vs. Cook Islands

As a side note, I was also surprised at the level of quality (ourselves excepted) at the tournament. I thought (rather naively) going into this tournament that the level of the NSW Premier League (where I used to coach with Manly United) would be superior. But if the Manly United Under 17 side turned up at this tournament they would be pummeled and embarrassed in each game, not to the extent Tonga was however!

One of 15 goals against the Solomons

Now while all this sounds largely negative, it isn’t. For me the highlight was our second half performance against the Cook Islands. After having one of our best players sent off, we played for 40 minutes with ten men and managed to win the second half 2-1. This showed me (and members of the TFA’s Executive Committee who were in attendance) that we do have some talent to work with in the future. Another positive has been the networking opportunities that have presented themselves throughout the course of the tournament. I was lucky enough to have a meeting with the head of Technical Development for the OFC, I attended training sessions and chatted with the coaches of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, American Samoa and Vanuatu and now have many ideas that I can take back to Tonga for the future. A number of these conversations have also led to possible job opportunities in the future, if I am so inclined.

The results and the performances of the boys, coupled with the networking opportunities I have had, will also lend further weight to my arguments that Tonga needs a fully functioning national academy in order to develop talent for the future. My job is now to go away and pen a report on the preparation and performance of the team and provide recommendations on how Tonga can move forward.

Our GK was the centre of attention in every match!

I have been told to be brutally honest in my summation by the TFA’s new Secretary General and am optimistic that a number of my recommendations will be taken on board. If they are, my job in Tonga will now be to establish a fully functioning youth academy over the next six months. That is, establish a means of selecting talent, devise a curriculum and talent pathway to ensure all players (boys and girls) train and play year round and develop a framework to develop and educate Tongan coaches to work at the academy and also in the wider community. I will do this while also assisting to prepare the national men’s and women’s team for the South Pacific Games in New Caledonia this August. If this is the case it will be a busy (relatively busy anyway – I am in Tonga after all) six months and a chance for me to leave a bit of a legacy for future Tongan coaches and Tongan players.

However, if for whatever reason the TFA decide against establishing a national academy (and I know budgetary issues are not a concern as I have had assurances from the OFC they will assist with money to establish the academy) then I will need to rethink my position in Tonga and whether it is worth hanging around while nothing changes for no good reason.

Note – New Zealand from the air is absolutely amazing. We are just flying over the South Island as I type this and there have been snow-capped volcanoes and mountains a tapestry of rivers intersecting each, golden beaches and awesome coast line the whole way. I am going to spend the next two and a bit weeks here on holiday driving from Queenstown back to Auckland via Mt. Cook, the west coast, Nelson and Wellington. I cannot wait and have a sneaky feeling I am going to fall in love with the South Island of New Zealand, either way it’s finally a chance to eat good food, drink good beers, catch up with a few people and perhaps convince the Euro in front of me to ditch Erkel!

Getting ready for Tahiti

Right now I am sitting in a horrible little internet cafe in Auckland after finishing our last training session ahead of our first game tomorrow against Tahiti. I realise that my tone was probably a bit narky in my last blog but I was just frustrated at what was going on. However, everyone there at the TFA that I deal with worked hard to convince the Executive Committee to allow the team to play and we now have the privilege of playing a World Cup Qualifying game tommorrow.

When it comes to coaching I have an ultra competitive nature as I just want my team to play to the best of their ability and to ultimately win. In the last day or so I have started to realise that winning isn't everything all the time and, as I was explained last night, "there will be life after the games." I know the boys will do their best for me and the fact is we are playing a team that is technically superior to us and have been together for 18 months training and playing over 20 games. We have been together for six weeks and played four games. While I desperately want to win, I think it is more important to feel proud to represent their country and to perform to the best of their ability.

I have also realised this trip is not just about football. I made the decision to live and work in Tonga based on the premise that I would get a chance to coach in an international competition. At 24, I now have that chance but my determination to do well here as led me to worry about 'little things' of no consequence and miss the bigger picture.

I think back now a couple of days to the plane trip here when we were flying over Auckland at approximately 1am in the morning (we were delayed 90 mins due to there being one person on the customs desk at Nuku 'Alofa and everyone having to line up in single file to get through) and the youngest player in the team who was sitting next to me excitedly poked me imploring me to look out the window. I have been lucky enough to travel a little bit and seen many cityscapes from the air at night, but this 13 year old kid had never been to a city before or even on a plane. After getting my attention he started tapping on the window and looking out at Auckland lit up at night, he then said "Auckland is faka ofa ofa" (Auckland is beautiful). I have never heard such sincere amazement and excitement in a kid's voice and now realise that this trip is about much more than football (although it would be nice to win a game or two). It is about taking 18 kids who have never left an island of 60,000 people before to see a another part of the world and open their eyes to a way of life off their beautiful, sleepy island.

Oh my... God

It has been an awesome Christmas and New Year's here in Tonga. I've had Tommy O'Hara, who perfected the art of doing nothing during his three weeks here, Dave Michael, who went through a truck-load of SPF +30 and Stevie Trik who could not keep still for longer than 10 minutes here in Tonga. During the time the boys were here we pretty much ate, drank, went for a daily swim and managed to fit in a couple of trips to Sunday Club Island.

Tommy

Dave

Stelio in the middle

We had a great Christmas Day as myself, Tom, David and my housemate Tomasi had a Bachelor's Christmas. Waking up at 11am after a few too many beers the night before we (except Tom of course) started preparing an afternoon feast consisting of tuna sashimi, pan fried tuna, roast vegetables, octopus, salad, wine, beers, rum, loads of chips and lollies and of course the PIG. At about 2pm we sat down on the balcony of 'The Palace', complete with an ocean view, and pretty much sat there drinking beers and eating food for the rest of the day, was a good way to spend my Tongan Christmas!

The pig being devoured

Christmas Drinks

I really appreciated the boys coming over here, it is easily the most expensive time of year to fly from Australia to Tonga and it was great to spend some time with three good mates from home. Hopefully one day I'll be in the position to visit them when they are living and working overseas.

The Pig

Now that the boys have gone I have started focusing all my efforts into getting the Tongan Under 17 team ready for their World Cup Qualifiers next week, which are supposed to start with a game against Tahiti on Sunday, 9th January.

I say supposed to be starting on the 9th as the Executive Committee of the Tongan Football Association have only just realised that the 9th, is a Sunday and they want us to forfeit the game against Tahiti. Sunday is a holy day here in Tonga, it is illegal for anyone to exercise, for shops to be open or to do anything at all really except to eat, sleep and go to church. There has also, apparently, been a precedent set as no Tongan national team has ever played on a Sunday. I think that is a load of rubbish and the Executive Committee are just making up excuses so people can't accuse them of being impious by allowing a bunch of teenagers to play a game of football on a Sunday.


While I can understand their stance if the game was supposed to be played here in Tonga, it's not. So it's not a legal issue, it's a 'moral' issue. It's an easy decision for a bunch of old Tongans to sit in a room and decide a team shouldn't play but the boys want to play, the other coaches (who are all Tongan) want them to play and all of the staff here (except one) want them to play.

The reality is, we will more than likely get slaughtered by Tahiti who have had over 12 months to prepare and have been playing in their national second division for a year. We've had five weeks and four friendly games against teams of varying skill and Tahiti will probably vie with New Zealand for the OFC's spot at the 2011 Under 17 World Cup. But it's not about winning, it's about the boys who have worked hard over the past five to six weeks being denied a chance to play in a FIFA World Cup Qualifying competition by a bunch of old men who think they know better. It is also about common sense, which is in short supply here in Tonga. What is the point of paying all the money to send a team to NZ and then just forfeiting the first game?


I met with a few members from the Committee today and tried to explain this to them. In as many words they said "we have no chance of winning anyway and it will be good for the boys to play the other three games regardless". It was not really the response I was looking for so I decided to try a different tact, I explained to them that if 'God' really is all powerful and has a hand in everything here on Earth then he must have had a hand in selecting all 18 boys in the squad, to which they agreed. I then said that 'God' must have played a hand in scheduling the match against Tahiti on Sunday so 'God' must have a good reason for wanting the boys to play that game on a Sunday.

Clutching at straws I know but they listened and will let me know of their decision at Midday tomorrow.