The 2024 OFC (Oceania Football Confederation) W Championship was the 5th edition of this tournament and was held in Samoa from the 7-19th of February 2024. The tournament served as the OFC qualifiers for the football tournaments at the 2024 Summer Olympics in France. With only one spot available for the Olympics, there was no place to slip up within the tournament.
Group stage draw
The draw consisted of three pots, with two to four teams in each of the pots based on the world rankings.
- Pot A: New Zealand & Papua New Guinea
- Pot B: Fiji, Tonga, Samoa & Solomon Islands
- Pot C: Vanuatu & American Samoa
Group A
- Solomon Islands
- Fiji
- Papua New Guinea
- American Samoa
Group B
- New Zealand
- Samoa
- Tonga
- Vanuatu
The tournament
As usual the difference in performance level within the OFC is gigantic, and therefore large results aren’t uncommon. Also in this series it was very obvious that the group stage would feature an unusual amount of goals. In Group A, the Solomon Islands finished first after drawing with Papua New Guinea in the opening game (1-1), but winning against American Samoa (7-1) and beatiing Fiji (3-1) in the last group match. However, as Fiji won their first two games against American Samoa (10-0) and a spectacular win over Papua New Guinea (4-3), they both advanced to the next round.
In Group B New Zealand won all three games against Tonga (3-0), Samoa (6-0) and Vanuatu (5-0), as they advanced without conceding a goal. They were joined by the home nation Samoa, who won their opening match against Vanuatu (1-0, due to a 96th minute penalty), and they beat Tonga (2-0). So the four teams progressing in the tournament are Solomon Islands, Fiji, Samoa and New Zealand.
The Knockout Stage
The semi-finals of the tournament saw the Solomon Islands beating Samoa 2-0 on the 16th of February as well as New Zealand really pushing this time and scoring 7 against Fiji (7-1 win). The Fiji consolation goal fell in the 93rd minute, and was therefore the first goal New Zealand conceded in this tournament.
The Final
The final was held on the 19th of February 2024 and saw the Solomon Islands playing New Zealand for a chance to feature at the Olympics. New Zealand is, as known, by far the strongest team within the OFC and the final score in this final game demonstrated this once again. New Zealand went on to win 11-1, and therefore booked their spot at the Olympics.
