Do-or-die for Lössi and Suva in Group B
New Caledonian debutants AS Lössi and Suva FA from Fiji will be desperate to keep their 2016 Oceania Champions League campaigns alive on day five of the competition.
Suva FA and in-form Hekari United from Papua New Guinea will kick off tomorrow’s proceedings in Group B. The second match will pair AS Lössi with last year’s runners-up Team Wellington.
Hekari United will be hoping to build on their eye-catching performance against Lössi when they face Suva in their second group match. The 2010 Champions were clinical going forward but showed some frailties in the back.
Despite the impressive 5-1 win coach Jerry Allen admits his side still has plenty to work on.
“It’s not going to be easy and we’re focused on this second game. Suva is a good side, I watched them play and they were good against Team Wellington. We must go back and work hard and try and give our very best against Suva.”
Meanwhile Suva can take plenty of positives out of their opening match against Wellington. The Fijians were defensively well organised and showed good discipline to hold out last year’s runners-up for most of the match.
However, they will need to concentrate for the full 90 minutes to keep their championship dream alive. Suva cannot afford another defeat, but coach Gurjit Singh admits it won’t be easy against their impressive opponent.
“Hekari are always a good team, they have a good set of boys. We’ll see how it goes.”
Team Wellington were made to work hard against a stubborn Fiji defense in their opening group match. They produced 27 shots on goal but only found the net twice so will be hoping for a more clinical performance in front of goal against Lössi. Goal difference could be crucial in determining qualification to the semis but Matt Calcott insists his side won’t underestimate the New Caledonians.
“They’ve obviously done very well back in New Caledonia and from what I understand they’ve got a number of national team players. It’s the turnaround, very rarely do you play a game on Saturday and then another one on Tuesday two days later so we have to recover well and see that we’re in the best possible form come Tuesday.”
Following a disappointing 5-1 defeat in their first ever Champions League match Lössi will be looking for a much improved performance. However, it’s not getting any easier for the New Caledonians. Last year’s runners up Tem Wellington will go into the match as clear favourit’s. Coach Stephane Drahusak says his side must regroup and forget about their opening.
“We needed to empty our heads a bit after the last match before we started thinking about tomorrow’s game. We will try and have a much better match on Tuesday.
“Suva, without knowing much about that team, started to really test the New Zealand side and they only conceded two goals which indicates that it’s maybe a game we can compete in.”
Sponsors
The OFC would like to acknowledge its sponsors iRENA, Telikom PNG, Konika Minolta, Tranzit Coachlines, Frucor and UNICEF.
Source: Oceania Football Confederation
