OFC Nations Cup
All the fixtures, schedules and historical data of the OFC Nations Cup featuring Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti with Sportmonks’ Football API.
All the fixtures, schedules and historical data of the OFC Nations Cup featuring Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti with Sportmonks’ Football API.
The OFC Nations Cup, also known as the Oceania Cup or the Oceania Nations Cup, was first held in 1973. The first two editions were played without any qualifying rounds. For the successive three tournaments, Australia and New Zealand were seeded into the OFC Nations Cup 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. When these tournaments were cancelled in 2002 the format of the OFC Nations Cup changed. FIFA rankings determined the seedings of all twelve teams. However, the format changed back to its original state back again in 2004. Later in 2008, the format was altered again. The 2007 South Pacific Games football tournament served as a qualification tournament, with the gold, silver and bronze-winning nations progressing to the main, round-robin format of the OFC Nations Cup for which New Zealand qualified automatically. New Zealand emerged as the winner of the 2008 tournament, ahead of New Caledonia.
As mentioned earlier the tournament’s first edition was in 1973. It was played in New Zealand, which also won the tournament. A second edition took place in 1980 in New Caledonia and was won by Australia. These two editions were the only ones without qualifying rounds. After this edition, the tournament was discontinued. So, Australia held the OFC Nations Cup title for 16 years without playing in any tournament. In 1996 the OFC reached the official status of Confederation for FIFA. This edition was played without a host nation with only four teams and was dominated by giants New Zealand and Australia who continued to dominate the tournament. 20 years after in 2006 Australia decided to join the Asian Football Confederation considerably changing the Oceania football scene. After that, the only major power in the OFC was New Zealand which continued to dominate the tournament. However, in 2012 Tahiti became the first non-Australia or New Zealand winner in a 1-0 win over New Caledonia.
The two best teams as mentioned are New Zealand and Australia who have won a total of 44 and 28 matches respectively. The worst teams are the Cook Islands and Samoa. With Samoa having played 6 matches, losing all of them and just scoring 1 goal while conceding 43. This means Samoa averages 7.1 goals against every match. The Cook Islands have just played 4 matches, losing them all. They have only scored 1 goal as well and conceded 41. This means an average of 10.2 goals against every match. The overall top goalscorers are Damian Mori from Australia with 14 goals. Another Australian comes right behind him, Kris Trajanovski with 11 goals. The rest of the top five is filled with New Zealand players. Shane Smeltz with 10 goals, Vaughan Coveny with 9 goals and Chris Killen with 7 goals. The most goals scored by a player in a game were 4 goals which are shared by 8 players. All from Australia or New Zealand. The most goal scored by a team in a match is held by Australia who managed to beat the Cook Islands 17-0 in the 2000 edition of the tournament.
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