THE Vodafone Fiji Women’s Football side went down to New Zealand 8-nil in the final of the OFC Women’s Nations Cup in New Caledonia on Saturday.
Fiji created history by reaching its first-ever final despite going down to New Zealand twice in the pool games and the final.
Fiji’s performance has been consistent throughout the tournament, especially against Pacific Games gold medallist Papua New Guinea when they played catch-up football to win the match 5-1 in the semi-final.
During an interview with OFC Oceania football, the Fiji women’s coach and former Rewa football coach Marika Rodu was impressed with the girls’ performance during the competition.
“Coming out of the qualification stage, we didn’t expect to come all this way,” said Rodu.
“We imagine that we can only improve football in Fiji, right now it is just only an infant.
“Our structure is still young, but to see these girls come out and prove themselves here in the region is quite amazing.”
During the OFC Women’s Nations Cup, Fiji played a total of eight games including the finals. They won five matches; they drew with the Solomon Islands in the second qualification rounds and lost two games against New Zealand.
In their first game Fiji beat Vanuatu 5-nil, before they were locked against the Solomon Islands nil all and they continued their consecutive winning streak against American Samoa by 2-nil, Fiji defeated the Cook Islands 3-0 and they thrashed Tonga 12-nil.
Meanwhile, New Zealand has now qualified to the FIFA World Cup which will be held in France next year.
