Herbert happy with direction of soccer

 Papua New Guinea men’s soccer coach Ricki Herbert is confident of a brighter future for the men’s team saying his Under-23 squad had performed well in its first two games.

Herbert, who lost to favoutites New Zealand on Sunday in their second loss of the Pacific Games at the Bisini sports ground, spoke highly of the talent of the Pacific Island countries in soccer.

Despite criticism against the decision for an under-23 team to represent PNG at the Games, Herbert, who arrived in March to prepare the team, said this was good as a long term preparation towards bigger international campaigns like the Nation’s Cup and World Cup.

“I’ve come to these island countries before and you can turn these island countries over quite handsomely,” Herbert said.

“I am focused on what we are doing and I think we are doing well,” he said.

“I am delighted and I am only proud of these boys and I think we’ve got a very strong team, we got a style that we are building on and we’ve got many boxes ticked,” he said.

“I’ve got 10 players elevated in this group and they are better and ready to come in and the challenge is set and quite squarely with these young players at the moment, my two centre halves will play in the U20s next year so we’ve got a nice core group of players that are working hard and have been excellent,” Herbert said.

He still has hopes to derail the ambitions of New Zealand and New Caledonia in the coming games.

“We just need to get a point and we are in the semi-finals, it’s the enormity of the group, I mean New Zealand can’t go to the Pacific Games, New Caledonia can’t go to the Olympics, so if we can get a point off the Solomon Islands we will try and play the semi and from what I’ve seen it should boost the confidence,” Herbert said.