Takuvaine faces Tupapa test

Today’s main match in the Lotto Premier men’s soccer competition between is the Takuvaine Red Devils and Tupapa and will take place up in the valley.

Tupapa was last year’s knock-out winner and will promise to put on their usual display of skillful football.

With the inclusion of two of their overseas players in the likes of Eugene Tatuava and Grover Harmon controlling the midfield, it will be a tough match for the boys up the valley. Nevertheless, rumour has it that the Takuvaine outfit are young and fit and will not lay down that easy. It is a tradition that when it comes to village honour and pride the red devils will be there to ensure that Tupapa does not get away with a win.

A few seasons back, these boys from the valley were dubbed ‘giant killers’ when they beat Tupapa and threatened Nikao Sokattak on several occasions, so you never know they could repeat the same thing today.

The message is – watch out for this young team!

For Tupapa to stop the young red team from the valley, they will need to use their experience to maintain ball possession throughout the game and feed their two fast strikers – Campbell Best and Paavo Mustonen.

For Takuvaine, the absence of a few key players will make a dent in their team. But to beat Tupapa they will have to rely on their defence to control and shift the ball wide across the field and keep this up through out the game to force the solid Tupapa defensive line to move out of their comfort zone to give Takuvaine’s youngsters a chance to score.

The Tupapa defensive line with the likes of Eddie Brogan and Mii Joseph will be hard to crack if they are not forced to move away from the goal area, and this bombardment must continue to create space through out the game to allow windows of opportunity for the valley boys to score.

The Tupapa outfit did well against a young Avatiu team last Friday at the CIFA complex defeating them 5-0 and will want to repeat this performance again this weekend. So the strategy for Takuvaine to contain this strong Tupapa side is for the coach to ensure that his boys play a one-on-one type of football, maintaining their distance at arms length and to put pressure on their opponents at anytime to disrupt Tupapa’s usual ball-flows into their goal area.

The Tupapa team is pretty balanced all round and for Takuvaine to contain this champion team, they must keep close eyes on Tupapa’s mid-fielders to denying them the opportunity to accurately deliver quality balls to their deadly strikers upfront because these strikers are known to be deadly once in possession of the ball.

Next, the valley boys will need to slow down Tupapa’s pace to allow their young team to play some good football and where opportunities do arise to hit back quickly and smartly to contain this strong Tupapa outfit.

With the help of their defenders to shift the ball wide, Takuvaine can create window of opportunities in the goal area which can eventually lead to goal scoring opportunities for the valley boys, however, any failure to play smarter against this strong Tupapa outfit can be fatal.

This game promises to be the game to watch this weekend.

In the Senior Women’s match, both teams are well matched in all departments, but whoever makes the least mistake will likely win this match.

To all those soccer fanatics out there, the valley is the place to be this afternoon to watch the world game.

In today’s other match Matavera will play Avatiu at the CIFA complex. Good Luck to all teams.