The Confed Cup always has a rather ersatz field, as it brings together the current champions of the world’s six regions. It’s a fun and somewhat unpredictable affair – witness the fact that the U.S. reached the final in this event four years ago, having beaten Spain in the semis, and the Screamin' Eagles then had the Brazilians down 2:0 a half hour into the final before the Seleção rattled off three goals to restore order to the universe. And this year the LOSE has a special rooting interest in this event, as it features probably the biggest underdogs you’re ever going to find in a major international soccer tournament, or just about any other tournament for that matter. There probaby hasn't been an underdog this big since Angola tried to play the Dream Team at the Barcelona olympics.
And that would be these guys:
I mean, uh, these guys ...
Behold the national team from Tahiti.
Tahiti won the most recent championship in Oceania, which is far and away the weakest region. It’s so bad, in fact, that the Australians started playing in Asia essentially because they got tired of winning all the time. No legit competition. The Socceroos departure has left the region at the mercy of New Zealand, who’ve shown themselves well – the All-Whites were the only team at the World Cup in South Africa that didn’t lose a game – yet somewhat inexplicably, New Zealand bombed out in the most recent Oceanic championships, and Tahiti wound up winning the tourney and punching a ticket to one of the more prestigious soccer events on the planet.
Tahiti is ranked about 140th in the world right now. They have one professional player, who plied his trade in Greece this past season. One of their goalkeepers used to play in France. Other than that, the Tahitians are all semipros or amateurs who mostly play in and around Papeete.
These guys are awesome. Their coach has stated that their primary goal for this tournament is to go through a half without getting scored on. Scoring a goal would be a triumph. Scoring a goal against Spain would probably get your picture on a postage stamp. They have no chance and they know it, but a few days they get to be treated like football royalty. And when they take on Spain next week at Estádio de Maracaña in Rio – an arena which is, quite simply, one of the games greatest stages, if not the greatest of all – they're damn sure going to enjoy the moment.
Compare and contrast the carefree attitude of the Tahitians with the plight of their first opponent in the tourney, which are the African champions from Nigeria. The Nigerians had a world cup qualifier in Namibia last week, after which the players stuck around Windhoek and refused to board their flight(s) to Brazil, briefly staging a wildcat strike after not being paid. This kind of thing seems to happen all the time in African football, which seems constantly besieged by political infighting and cronyism. FIFA finally had to step in and resolve this issue, working out a settlement between the national federation and the players, and the Nigerians are now headed across the Atlantic but aren't likely in the best of moods.
Not that it will likely matter that much in terms of the final results on Monday – the Nigerians have far more talent and will likely overwhelm the Tahitians. But the Tahitians don't need to win to acquit themselves well. By simply being there, they've already won, and I suspect they will embrace the challenge and compete accordingly. Even if they get thrashed (and they likely will), the actual scores of the games won't matter much. It's always better to play, and to lose, than not have the chance to play at all.
And in any event, they get to go back to Tahiti when it's over:
You could do worse.
