This comes as the National side lost their opening match 9-4 to a superior Solomon Islands outfit on Wednesday.
Robert Laua and Franco Ne’e led the way with a hat-trick each while captain James Naka scored a double and McPhillip Aisa also chimed in with one for the defending champions who have gone on to represent Oceania region in the last four FIFA beach soccer World Cup events.
For Fiji it was Ratu Dugucagi scoring a brace with Rajnesh Raju and Archie Watkins also getting on the score sheet.
Fiji beach soccer head coach Intiaz Khan admitted that Solomon’s was the superior side on the day. He adds there focus was entirely on Tahiti now.
“We were expecting a solid performance from the Solomon Islands and they deserved the win today. But my team, many of them newcomers to Beach Soccer, stood up to the challenge and fought all the way to the end.
“It was a positive way to finish with three goals in the last period and that will give the boys confidence going into the next match against Tahiti tomorrow,” he said.
Beniamino Mateinaqara the Fiji skipper shared similar sentiments.
“The Solomon Islands are known as the Brazilians of the Pacific and they’ve been to four world cups. For most of our team, we are better known for 11-a-side. But we played with pride today and were pleased to score four goals past them and show that we can compete.
“Tonight we’ll watch a video of the match and see where we can improve. But mostly I think we need to work on our defense, especially managing the balls thrown from the goalkeeper to their forward players,” Mateinaqara said.
A win for Fiji on Thursday keeps them alive in the playoffs and then will be hoping that the result of Tahiti vs. Solomon’s goes in their favour on Saturday.
Solomon’s will have a rest day tomorrow and their coach Henry Koto says he was pleased with their opening encounter.
“The wind made it a bit difficult today but with the experience within the team I think they handled the conditions well and played a good game. I’m very pleased with Robert Laua who was tremendous. He is a very young player, he gives everything, he is consistent and today he showed what he can do scoring a hat-trick,” he said
Fiji faces host Tahiti 11.30am Fiji Time on Friday morning.
Fiji FA MEDIA
Fiji goes down to Solomon’s
