It was not until the 17th of this month that the World Cup qualifiers in the Oceania division were late. With more than a dozen teams already qualified for the World Cup in Qatar, the World Preliminary Tournament has only just begun in distant Oceania.
The first round of the play-offs, scheduled for March 14, was due to the volcanic disaster in Tonga, and the Cook Islands team (green shirts below), who had not participated in the World Series for many years, won without a fight and advanced to the second round of the group stage. Therefore, on the evening of the 17th Beijing time, the Cook Islands and solomon Islands, which ranked 190th in world football, fired the first shot of the World Preliminary Tournament in Oceania. With only 8 teams competing and just over 10 matches in total, Oceania's World Preliminary Tournament is the latest World Cup qualifier to start in the world. The 8 teams ranked 111-190 internationally, all behind the national football team.
In the first match, the Cook Islands in Group A lost 2-0 to the Solomon Islands. Dressed in a yellow team uniform, solomon islands, the jersey sponsor is Rick Sporting Goods Co., Ltd. from Guangdong, China. Although wearing a Chinese sports brand, Oceania football is probably the Australian football that left the most Chinese fans with the AFC to grab meat, and the "Tahiti king" Chinese football celebrity Gong Lei.
No wonder there are only half tickets, after all, there are not many FIFA-qualified teams here. In the second match that ended late at night on the 18th, the current Oceania boss New Zealand from Group B narrowly defeated Papua New Guinea 1-0, and also made a good start. Of the eight Oceania teams, only New Zealand has ever played in the World Cup. The remaining four teams are Vanuatu, Tahiti, Fiji and New Caledonia.
The eight teams are divided into two groups for the second round of qualifiers, but the game is only played in a single round-robin, with a total of 6 matches in each group, and after all 12 World Preliminary Rounds in both groups, the final 4 will be born. Then the top 4 were caught and killed, and finally the "championship" was fought through the knockout round, which was the last 0.5 World Cup tickets. Judging from the historical World Preliminary Round, after the Kangaroo Army left, the New Zealand team has an unshakable king status. Although their international ranking is much lower than that of the national football team, the overall strength is not necessarily worse than the national football team. Currently, New Zealand's number one star is Newcastle United striker Wood, who is a powerful striker in the Premier League.
But at this time, a certain South American team (the final fifth place) far away from Oceania was waiting for the final move after new Zealand got half a ticket. Historically, New Zealand's two world cup finalists have won asian teams in the play-offs, including the victory over the national team in 1982 and the victory over West Asian side Bahrain in 2010. At present, the Chinese men's football team, which is deeply involved in the "sea cucumber crisis", in fact, even if it participates in the Oceania World Preliminary Tournament, it is difficult to get cheap, even if New Zealand, which has ranked outside the FIFA top 100 in the past 5 years, should be above the national football team.