OFC Nations Cup

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OFC Nations Cup

Sport	Football
Founded	1996
No. of teams	11
Continent	Oceania (OFC)
Most recent champion(s)	Current champion Australia is no longer a member of the OFC and will not be defending the title.

The OFC Nations Cup is the biennial football competition held among the Oceania Football Confederation member nations. It has been held every two years since 1996 by the OFC; before 1996 there were two other tournaments held at irregular intervals, under the name Oceania Nations Cup.

Historically, a very large gulf separated Australia and New Zealand from the smaller island competitors. Little attention was paid to the tournament by the rest of the football world, but the competition has increased in importance as it now qualifies the winner for the lucrative Confederations Cup and for a play-off for the 2010 World Cup.

Australia ceased to be a member of the OFC on January 1, 2006, having elected to join the Asian Football Confederation, and hence will no longer be involved in this competition.

1 History
2 Format
3 Results
4 Records and statistics
5 External Links

[edit] History

This tournament began in 1973 as the "Oceania Cup". A second edition took place in 1980, then the tournament was discontinued.

In the early editions non-FIFA members were allowed to participate such as New Hebrides, which became Vanuatu after gaining independence in 1980.

In 1996 it reappeared as the "Oceania Nations Cup" and served as a qualifier for the Confederations Cup, as the Oceania Football Confederation had recently become a separate FIFA confederation.

[edit] Format

For the first three tournaments, Australia and New Zealand were seeded into the tournament automatically, while the remaining ten nations played to qualify. The Polynesian and Melanesian Cups, each played between five nations grouped on a geographical basis, served as qualifications via a round-robin tournament, with the highest ranked two teams in each competition qualifying for the actual OFC Nations Cup, in a six-way round-robin tournament.

With the postponement and then cancellation of the Melanesian Cup, and a similar fate befalling its Polynesian equivalent, the format of the tournament changed in 2002. FIFA rankings determined the seedings of all twelve teams, and the lower six teams played a group stage for two qualifier positions into the main tournament. The 2002 Cup tournament proper was played with two groups of four teams (again in round-robin style), which led into a 4-way knockout stage, playing for the top four positions.

In 2004, the format changed once again, returning to a format similar to that of the 1996-2000 tournaments, with five teams each playing in two qualifying groups and Australia and New Zealand seeded to the actual tournament, played as a group stage of six, with a home and away Final played between the two highest-placed teams.

For the 2008 tournament, the format has altered once more. The 2007 South Pacific Games football tournament will act as a qualification tournament, with the gold, silver and bronze winning nations progressing to the main tournament. The finals will be played in a round-robin format, with New Zealand qualifying automatically. The winner of the 2008 OFC Nations Cup will playoff with a team from the AFC for a place in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

[edit] Results

[edit] Summaries

Year	Host	Final			Third Place Match
Year	Host	Winner	Score	Runner-up	3rd Place	Score	4th Place
1973 Details	New Zealand	New Zealand	2–0	Tahiti	New Caledonia	2–1	New Hebrides
1980 Details	New Caledonia	Australia	4–2	Tahiti	New Caledonia	2–1	Fiji
1996 Details	No Fixed Venue	Australia	6–0 5–0	Tahiti	New Zealand		Solomon Islands
1998 Details	Australia	New Zealand	1–0	Australia	Fiji	4–2	Tahiti
2000 Details	Tahiti	Australia	2–0	New Zealand	Solomon Islands	2–1	Vanuatu
2002 Details	New Zealand	New Zealand	1–0	Australia	Tahiti	1–0	Vanuatu
2004 Details	Australia	Australia	5–1 6–0	Solomon Islands	New Zealand	BY TABLE	Fiji
2008 Details	No Fixed Venue

[edit] Successful national teams

Team	Champions	Runners-up	Third-place	Fourth-place
Australia	4 (1980, 1996, 2000, 2004)	2 (1998, 2002)	-	-
New Zealand	3 (1973, 1998, 2002)	1 (2000)	2 (1996, 2004)
Tahiti	-	3 (1973, 1980, 1996)	1 (2002)	1 (1998)
Solomon Islands	-	1 (2004)	1 (2000)	1 (1996)
New Caledonia	-	-	2 (1973, 1980)	-
Fiji	-	-	1 (1998)	2 (1980, 2004)
Vanuatu	-	-	-	3 (1973^, 2000, 2002)

^ This 1973 fourth place was achieved by Vanuatu under its former name New Hebrides.

[edit] Total hosts

Time(s)	Nation	Year(s)
2	Australia	1998, 2004
2	New Zealand	1973, 2002
1	Tahiti	2000
1	New Caledonia	1980
2	No Host	1996, 2008

[edit] Performances by host nations

Year	Host nation	Finish
1973	New Zealand	Champions
1980	New Caledonia	Third Place
1996	No Host
1998	Australia	Second Place
2000	Tahiti	Group Stage
2002	New Zealand	Champions
2004	Australia	Champions
2008	No Host

[edit] OFC Nations Cup winning managers and captain

Year	Head coach	Captain	Champions
1973	Barrie Truman	?	New Zealand
1980	Rudi Gutendorf	?	Australia
1996	Eddie Thomson	Paul Wade	Australia
1998	Ken Dugdale	Jason Batty	New Zealand
2000	Frank Farina	Stan Lazaridis	Australia
2002	Mick Waitt	?	New Zealand
2004	Frank Farina	Tony Vidmar	Australia
2008

[edit] Records and statistics

[edit] Participating nations

Participating nations by number of final tournament appearances:

8 times

New Zealand

7 times

6 times

5 times

Solomon Islands

4 times

New Caledonia

2 times

[edit] Overall top goalscorers

Goals	Scorers
14	Damian Mori
11	Kris Trajanovski
10	Vaughan Coveny
7	Chris Killen, Commins Menapi
6	Tim Cahill, Joel Porter, Paul Trimboli
5	Scott Chipperfield, Bobby Despotovski, Mark Burton, Jeff Campbell, Ryan Nelsen, Eddie Krncevic, Ian Hunter, Craig Foster, Clayton Zane, Jean-Loup Rousseau

Updated till Jenuary 3 2008.

[edit] Top scorers

Year	Player	Goals
1973	Segin Wayewol Alan Marley Erroll Bennett	3
1980	Ian Hunter Eddie Krncevic	5
1996	Kris Trajanovski	7
1998	Damian Mori	10
2000	Craig Foster Clayton Zane	5
2002	Joel Porter	6
2004	Tim Cahill Vaughan Coveny	6
2008	Shane Smeltz^	4

^ 2008 edition will finish on 10 September 2008

[edit] General Statistics

The teams who are involved in the 2008 edition are in bold.

Team		Pts	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GDif	%
1	Australia	74	28	24	2	2	142	13	+129	88,1%
2	New Zealand	68	30	22	2	6	84	28	+56	75,5%
3	Tahiti	39	28	12	3	13	53	71	-18	46,4%
4	Fiji	20	23	6	2	15	29	56	-27	29,0%
5	New Caledonia	19	13	6	1	6	30	34	-4	48,7%
6	Solomon Islands	17	19	5	2	12	24	60	-36	29,8%
7	Vanuatu	16	25	5	1	19	26	59	-33	21,3%
8	Papua New Guinea	4	6	1	1	4	8	34	-26	22,2%
9	Cook Islands	0	4	0	0	4	1	41	-40	0,00%

Updated till Jenuary 3 2008.

[edit] Teams Which Have Failed to Qualify

Year	Teams Eliminated In The Qualifying Round	Number Of Teams To The Final Round	Total
1973	No Qualifying Round	5	5
1980	No Qualifying Round	8	8
1996	Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa	4	11
1998	Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa	6	12
2000	Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa, Fiji^	6	12
2002	Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa	8	11
2004	Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa, Cook Islands	6	12
2008	Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa, Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu^^	4	11