Solomon Islands coach Felipe Vega-Arango says the teams in the Group A of the OFC Preliminary competition for the FIFA World Cup 2022 will be presents a difficult task for the country’s national side in Qatar.
The Spaniard front the local media yesterday after the draws were known.
“About the draws, we’re playing in March and we have Tahiti, Vanuatu and the winner of the match between the Cook Islands and Tonga. To be honest with you, all the teams are difficult,” he said.
“All the games are difficult qualifying matches, everybody wants to win and everybody’s going to prepare well at this moment.”
The COVID-19 has had a lengthy delay to international football and domestic competitions in the Oceania region and Felipe believes that all the OFC nations have similar issues in preparation for the World Cup qualifiers.
“I believe all the teams have the same problems because of the pandemic a lot of people have not played any matches. The only team playing matches right now is New Zealand because they have oversea based players.
“So everybody’s going to start pretty much in the same place and we don’t have too much time to prepare. It’s very little time because we have holidays coming up,” he added.
Felipe also highlighted the impact of the recent political crisis in the country which led to riots last week in Honiara disrupting the planned daily training sessions at DC Park.
“The riots last week didn’t help too much because we were supposed to start training last week and we already missed a few beautiful days of training.
“The most important thing is that the country has stability and that everybody is happy and supporting each other. I think the nation needs that at the moment,” Felipe stressed.
The OFC Preliminary competition will take place in Qatar from 14 to 30 March 2022 meaning there is less time to prepare the team heading into the festive season.
“And speaking about football, we don’t have too much time to prepare. We need to practice as much time as possible.
“We need the players to have full commitment to a national team, no village competitions and stuff like that. They need to practice, practice, practice and practice. We will try as hard as possible to have a competitive team.
“The competition is in mid-March with the travelling and with the little days that we could miss, we don’t have two full months of training, so we need to prepare here. Everybody needs to work hard and I hope everything goes accordingly and we do a good job,” the Spaniard stated.
It’s an offseason and the priority for the players now is the national team besides some Christmas competitions in the provinces.
Football always unites the people during Solomon Islands darker times and Felipe believe that a positive campaign in Qatar could unify the nation after the recent political crisis in the country.
“The priority now is the national team. The commitment is the national team. This is work. It is qualifying matches and we represent a nation and I believe it’s extremely important for us right now to represent the nation in the best way possible to keep the country happy, to keep the country unified and to show to the people that as an agent we can do things together. So the players have a bit of responsibility,” he stated.
Currently, there are 29 players in the national training squad as they will train every weekday during the festive session.
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