The Copa America, the Euros and the OFC Nations Cup. All happening this summer. The Copa starts on Friday and the Euros next week. The OFC Nations Cup has been going on for a week. The Copa is unique in that it is a special 100 year anniversary edition and has 6 non-South American guest countries taking part. The OFC Nations Cup is the Oceania championship and it's uniqueness is that it is also round 2 of World Cup qualifying.
This is where I admit that with all the things I follow and write about I did know about this but did not remember when I mentioned round 2 of qualifying last week. The other thing about the OFC is that while the world will hear about the Copa and the Euros (because the world cannot go without football for a couple of months) nobody outside the Oceania region will know much about it.
It's in Papua New Guinea and the 8 competing teams are the 8 out of the 11 countries that made it to the second round of World Cup qualifying. The top two teams in each group of 4 move on to the semi finals and the winning team represents Oceania in the 2017 Confederations Cup. The only team other than Australia and New Zealand to win this was Tahiti, last time round. And that's why they were in the last Confederations Cup in Brazil when we all were in awe of the romanticism of the small Pacific nation being thrashed by everybody. Now that Australia are Asian , it really takes New Zealand to be in a trance for them not to win it. They have started off with 2 wins this time and will be determined to not be upstaged and embarrassed by Tahiti or Fiji this time.
The top three teams in each group become the 6 teams who will move on to Round 3 and compete for the one half spot for Russia 2018. A half spot because they will have to win the inter-continental play-off.
Stay tuned here for updates and results from PNG.
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