Oceania Teams, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand have now bowed out of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Papua New Guinea 2016 competition.
The quarter finals will continue without them, but both teams have a lot to celebrate as they exit.
Though Team PNG went in as the underdogs, they have an achievement, worth celebrating.
Before the World cup, PNG Coach, Lisa Cole, had one aim and that was to get the PNG team to score in this world cup.
They went in, losing 9 – 0 to Brazil, then 6 – 0 to the Swiss team. This whilst playing amid negative criticisms from the public. However in their final game, through Nicollete Ageva, the team scored a goal.
They lost the match, 7 – 1 to Korea DPR and exited from the competition.
It may come off to most as just a score, but for this team of young inexperienced girls, the PNG Football fraternity and their home ground supporters, history was made.
Sharing the affinity of a confederate with PNG is team New Zealand, who are by far more experienced than PNG at playing at the World Cup. After their 2 – 0 loss to France last evening, Coach Leon Birnie, said, throughout the course of their participation, it has been a great experience for his team, who like many others do not have the same players from previous U-20 World Cup events.
The New Zealand team left PNG this afternoon while team PNG Players will be dispatched to their respective centres by the end of this week.
