Oceania World Cup Qualifiers

The Oceania zone is perhaps the least interesting of all FIFA zones which are playing qualifications for the World Cup. In terms of football, but probably in every other way, no continent has lagged behind the competition as much as Oceania. 

OFC could never be proud of some great successes, now that Australia has left it, everything is even less professional, so practically only New Zealand can make a national team that has the right to think about participating in the World Cup in Qatar. 

The coronavirus pandemic caused total chaos and the start of the competition was postponed several times. In the end, the OFC decided that all matches would be played in Qatar, on neutral ground, but neither the Cook Islands nor Vanuatu could travel to Doha.

Honorable Mention

Tonga

Tonga is the lowest placed country from this zone on FIFA ranking at the moment placed on the 199th place.

Top 10 Oceania Soccer Teams

10. Samoa

Samoa is 193rd nation on FIFA Rankings.

9. Cook Island

Cook Island, ranked 190th place, also can’t be proud of the successes of their football team. They have played 7 times in the final tournament for qualifying to the World Cup.

8. American Samoa

The 189th ranked country is American Samoa. They rarely reach the final stage of qualifications for the World cup and don’t have any success in other competitions they have participated in.

7. Vanuatu Island

Vanuatu Island is far from a football nation. Their national team is ranked 166th place on FIFA ranking and they haven’t made any bigger success so far.

6. Fiji

Fiji is 165th nation on FIFA Ranking. Fiji has two internationals, Roy Krishna, who plays for the Indian super league team ATK Mohun Bagan, as well as midfielder Peter Ravai, a member of the English six-league Maidstone United. They have finished in 3rd place twice in the OFC Nations cup in 1998 and 2008.

5. Tahiti

Tahiti is not a big country. With about 200,000 inhabitants, it somehow managed to reach the big football scene, and the fact that it had only one professional player in its first appearance at the Confederations Cup did not bother this Pacific Island nation to win the sympathy of the entire planet. 

Namely, they won the OFC Cup of nations in 2012 and were participants in FIFA Confederation Cup in Brazil in 2013. It is their biggest success so far and now they are ranked as 164th on FIFA list.

4. Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea ranked 162nd on FIFA rank is 4th best placed team from this zone. They are far from competitive to enter the World Cup or even the playoffs and their main goal is to reach better results in the OFC Nations Cup. They finished as 2nd in 2016.

3. New Caledonia

New Caledonia is on 160th place on FIFA Ranking. Their team, the same as Solomon Islands’, is composed of amateur players. Their biggest success is winning two silver medals in the OFC Nations cup in 2008 and 2012.

2. Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands are the second best team ranked in 137th place. They became part of FIFA in 1988 and their national team is composed mostly of amateur players that are playing in the domestic league.

1. New Zealand

In the qualifications for World Cup in Qatar, New Zealand national football team showed why it is the best ranked national team from this zone on the 101st place of FIFA rankings and has won the final qualifying round for the 2022 World Cup after beating the Solomon Islands 5-0 in the Oceania Zone final. 

New Zealand will be chasing its third World Cup qualifier, the first in 12 years, on 13 or 14 June against a fourth-placed team from the CONCACAF zone, Costa Rica.

The final of the Oceanian qualifiers was held at the tournament in Doha, and New Zealand recorded five victories on the way to first place.

In the group, the New Zealanders defeated Papua New Guinea (1-0), Fiji (4-0) and New Caledonia (7-1), then in the semifinals they were better than Tahiti (1-0), and in the finals they were better than the Solomon Islands with 5-0.

Conclusion

By the way, since Australia withdrew from the OFC and joined the Asian Confederation, the winner of the qualifications there has only qualified for the World Cup once. It was in 2010, when New Zealand recorded three draws in South Africa, surprising even the Italian national team.

From the next, expanded World Cup, which will be held in 2026 in Mexico, the USA and Canada, Oceania will have a direct representative in the tournament. Now, however, he will have to go to the barrage once again.

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