Soccer chief pleased with our footballers
By HENRY MORABANG
PAPUA New Guinea should be proud of its achievement recorded by its U23 men and the women soccer team at the Beijing Olympic Games qualifying tournament over the weekend.
PNG Football Association president David Chung said in the post-mortem interview that the results have shown some improvement in football ranking compare to previous years.
He was more pleased with the results of women as they held New Zealand to a scoreless first half and were unfortunate to allow the visitors to score two goals to book their ticket to Beijing for the Olympic Games in August.
He said New Zealand’s performance is now before New Zealand Olympic Committee who has yet to endorse their inclusion in the New Zealand contingent for Beijing which still keeps qualifying options open for PNG women.
“Honestly, the Olympic standard is by far better than what New Zealand and PNG have displayed over the weekend. You imagine competing against stronger teams like USA, Germany and Brazil, it would be a daunting task,” Chung said of PNG’s unlikely participation at the Beijing.
The president said that realistically, PNG lacked tactics which something his administration was working on through coaches education programmes. “That was the sole reason why PNGFA has been inviting OFC to conduct coaching clinics and workshops. The latest one was over the weekend where 15 women coach underwent soccer clinic under the OFC Women development officer Jim Selby.
Chung admitted that the PNG women team was financially handicapped in getting warm-up matches. “As you can see, PNG women played their hearts out despite their size against their taller and bigger New Zealand opponents. Unlike PNG, New Zealand women did a lot of tour before playing Australia Matilidas en route to PNG”
He said the future of our participation at World Cup or Olympic games lies in women soccer.
“It is time now local associations take stock of their development programmes and put emphasis on women youth division. The local associations must encourage women participation at youth level in order for women footballers to be stronger at senior or representative level.
On the U23 performance in Fiji, Chung gave a full wrap to NSL chairman John Kapi Natto and his board for their initiative in establishing the concept. He said NSL was the way to go – basically to bring PNG football into another level.
“Give us four years, PNG should be competitive with its home-grown players at the regional meets such as the Pacific Games and Oceania football qualifying matches,” he said.
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