TAHITI NUI BEACH SOCCER PREVIEW – PRESSURE ON THE SOLOMONS

Defending Oceania Football Confederation Champions the Solomon Islands will be feeling the full force of Tahitian heat this afternoon at Temae Beach as they battle to keep their Championship hopes alive against the host nation.

Solomon Islands were the ‘upset’ losers of day one after dramatically conceding two extra time goals to Vanuatu for a 2-4 defeat.

Vanuatu have strong form for beating the Solomons on day one of an Oceania Beach Soccer Championship, they’ve done twice before in 2006 & 2007.

Match day two (Tuesday local time) will see Fiji and Vanuatu kick off the day’s action in the first match before Tahiti and the Bilikiki Boys do battle in what will likely be a must-win for the OFC defending Beach Soccer champions.

Solomon’s World Cup star James Naka was at his brilliant best yesterday playing a key role in their first goal and scoring the second as he dragged his team into extra time.

Today he will need a more inspired effort from his teammates if the Bilikiki are to get past a fired up Tahiti squad that has a well balanced look, experience and a nine weeks of solid preparation behind them.

Tahitian coach Tahitian player/coach Sebastien Labayen described his teams’ 10-5 win over Fiji as being “moderately good” but expressed concern over perceived defensive lapses that allowed five goals to Fiji.

“We take confidence from the goals we scored today (match day one), and from taking this win, but we know that the Solomons often start slow and come back to qualify so day two is going to be very, very important for us too.”

“We have a very good defense and we have worked very hard to strengthen that, so five goals is too much – we must do better and we must improve our spirit, our ‘fight’ tomorrow, that is what we will need to beat the Solomons,” Labeyen said post-match.  

Neither Tahiti nor the Solomons have any injury concerns after day one.

The opening match of day two will see Vanuatu and Fiji do battle with the former appearing to be in a prime position to book a berth in the final.

After his team’s exciting 4-2 extra time win Vanuatu coach Richard Iwai cut a sober and composed figure, telling OFC that while he was very pleased with his team’s first up performance he is wary of complacency.

“We know that we have beaten the Solomons in a Championship opening match before and then they have come back to beat us in the final. So now we must just look to our next match on match day two against Fiji and again be at our best.”

“In the past, when I was not the coach, Vanuatu has beaten Solomons and then had bad loses in the following days, we will be concentrating and not taking Fiji as an easy win,” Iwai said.

The stage is set for another blistering day’s action at Moorea’s picturesque Temae Beach soccer arena, oceaniafootball.com will have match reports, period-end score updates and photos online throughout the afternoon.