Blues set for final mission

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LAUTOKA assistant coach Aginesh Prasad expects the Blues to complete a mission impossible against Team Wellington in the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) Champions League second leg final at Churchill Park this afternoon to secure a historical spot in the FIFA World Club Cup in December.The Vodafone Lautoka team was thrashed 6-0 by Team Wellington in the first final in New Zealand last week and needs to win by seven clear goals today to secure the OFC Champions League title.

Despite suffering a big defeat, Prasad is adamant that the home side would turn the tables against the visitors.

At a press conference yesterday, Prasad said anything could happen in football.

“In camp we are all focused like Team Wellington,” he said.

“We know that nothing is impossible in this game and we have worked out our plan. We are looking for a win. In football anything can happen. To score seven goals is not impossible.

“It is a big task but we are focused to beat Team Wellington. We would like to call on all our fans to come out in numbers to support the team. “This is the fi rst time we are playing
in the final and we have learnt a lot of things. To play the fi nal it is not easy. Moving forward if we qualify for next year, there will be different things that we will do.”

Lautoka captain Beniamino Mateinaqara who put up a man of the match performance against Team Wellington last week said it was hard to swallow the 6-0 loss.

“After losing to Team Wellington in New Zealand, we needed swallow that 6-0 loss and it was hard. It happened and we cannot change that.

“Only thing we can do right now is just to improve from where we left off and rectify our mistakes and make sure that we keep our heads together and play football.”

Team Wellington which has played in the three previous OFC Champions League fi nals goes into the match in the driving seat. However the side is focused to finish the task off.

Team Wellington captain Justin Gulley said they understood that there was another game to play.

“Anything can happen in these games and we are fully prepared,” Gulley said.

“We are not too far ahead of ourselves and are staying on track.”

Team Wellington coach Jose Figuiera said there was a lot of emotion after the first final as they made a huge step towards the goal they wanted to achieve at the start of the year.

“But in terms of keeping the players focused it has been fairly easy as we have a group of players’ here who are playing their second, third or fourth final,” Figuiera said.

“We are desperately close and we are really ready and focused to finish the job off.

“Both teams will be looking to finish the competition with a positive result regardless where the game is played and what country.

“The final of any competition is a very exciting thing to be in.”

The match will kick off at 2pm.

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