With less than three weeks to the kick off of the 2009 Oceania Football Confederation FUTSAL championship in Suva, host nation Fiji has named a powerful 12 member squad for the event.
Coach Imtiaz Khan has included more taller and aggressive players in his team this season to counter the other pacific islanders in the playoff which will be played at the Vodafone Arena in Suva from July 6-11.
National goalkeeper Simione Tamanisau, striker Osea Vakatalesau, Uraia Loki, Aisea Codro and 2008 OFC FUTSAL Championship golden boot winner Kamal Hassan are some of the big names in the team.
Players retained from last season’s squad which finished off fourth behind Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Tahiti includes Captain Mira Sahib, goalkeeper Azmat Begg, Dinesh Mudliar and Sandeep Nair.
Suva striker Joseph Mishra and youngsters Mohammed Shalmeen and Shivam Nathan will be making their debut in the national colors.
The OFC FUTSAL Championship Fiji 2009 marks the sixth time Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) has staged the event. Since its inception in 1992, the championships have been held every four years as part of the qualification process for the FIFA FUTSAL World Cup tournaments.
Fiji 2009 marks the first year of the new annual format for the championship which shows OFC’s
commitment to developing FUTSAL by providing regular competition for Oceania’s top teams. The popularity of FUTSAL – an indoor form of football played with five players per side and a weighted ball – continues to grow throughout the region as a number of OFC’s eleven member associations start to develop domestic competitions to support the game.
The competition featuring Fiji, New Caledonia, the Kurukuru from Solomon Islands and Vanuatu will be played on a round robin basis.
The Fiji Squad: Simione Tamanisau, Azmat Begg, Uraia Loki, Osea Vakatalesau, Aisea Codro, Kamal Hassan, Dinesh Mudliar, Sandeep Nair, Joseph Mishra, Mira Sahib, Mohammed Shalmeen and Shivam Nathan.
News on
RSS 
