‘Guam still better than CNMI in soccer’

The CNMI may have finished two rungs higher than archrival Guam in the team standings of the 2012 Boys Asian Football Confederation U14 Festival, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Commonwealth suddenly has leapfrogged the U.S. territory in the sport of soccer.

No less than Northern Mariana Islands Football Association president Jerry Tan asserted that the U14 boys soccer festival in Beijing, China in no way correctly gauged the levels of the island nations’ soccer programs.

“Despite placing ahead of Guam, I know that Guam still has a stronger soccer program than the CNMI since they are 30 years ahead of our soccer history. They have large funding support from FIFA (Federacion Internationale de Football Association). They have many superior soccer pitch/facility. They have a larger pool of qualified coaches. They have a larger pool of good players as GFA (Guam Football Association) has over 3,000 kids playing soccer in Guam. Thus, I don’t think anyone should celebrate last month’s result that we are better than Guam since it was a festival format,” he wrote in an email to the Saipan Tribune.

But Tan said the CNMI U14 National Team’s performance in Beijing definitely gave a good impression on the work NMIFA has been doing to further develop the sport in the CNMI.

“I know our U14 boys team has surprised AFC and Guam, and we are definitely closing the gap with Guam with the continuing development of our youth players. I can say that we are now competitive with Guam!” he said.

For his part, NMIFA general secretary Ed Salas agreed with Tan’s assessment and said despite AFC not recording scores because the tournament was a non-competitive one, it still mattered a lot to CNMI players to finish ahead of Guam in Beijing.

“Competition with Guam is always tough but we are improving against them and one day it’ll be ‘sweet’ victory when we notch a win. I know our boys were excited when I gave them the unofficial standings. Had Guam beaten Macau and not tied them we would have finished below them, so we give our thanks to Macau,” he told Saipan Tribune.

For the record, the CNMI finished the AFC U14 boys football festival in seventh place with a 2-5-2 win-loss-draw record.

South Korea finished with a perfect 9-0-0 card, ahead of Japan (7-1-1), Hong Kong (6-1-2), North Korea (5-1-3), China (4-1-4), and Chinese-Taipei (3-5-1).

Finishing below the CNMI were Mongolia (2-6-1), Guam (2-6-1), and Macau (0-8-1).

In terms of matches, the CNMI U14 team beat Chinese-Taipei, 2-0, and Macau, 1-0. It also forced draws against host China, 1-1, and Mongolia, 2-2.

It did lose five games, twice to Guam (2-0 and 4-0), once against South Korea (2-0), and were thoroughly beaten by Japan (18-0) and North Korea (9-0).

The CNMI U14 National Football Team was made up of Dakota Hall, Jordan Butcher-Wade, William Hinson II, Joel Fruit, and Kennedy Izuka. Completing the team are Carlson Cruzat, Alan Hinson, Christopher Aninzo, Daniel and John Auther, Julian Pellegrino, Won-Young Kim, Jeremie Tanghal, Gideon Borja, John Masga, Louie Calayag, Emmanuel Aniana, Ryu Tanzawa, Moris Villanueva, Joshua Galarion, James Ermitanio, and Wataru Takima.

Kiyoshi Sekiguchi was the team’s head coach with Gary Ramsey serving as team doctor/secretary.