Oceanic Football Teams Trivia Quiz

Answer: Australia

Australia was, at one time, a part of the Oceanic Football Confederation but it moved to the Asian Football Confederation in 2006, removing itself from the leagues with the other outlying island nations. With its national team being known as the Socceroos, Australia pushes its teams through a league system topping out with the A-League competition (its first season was 2005-06). Clubs form all states of Australia also compete for the Australia Cup (a straight knock-out competition). Most of Australia's teams, at this level, play for a home city with Melbourne and Sydney both having two or more clubs.

The league has also, at times, included one or two New Zealand teams.

Answer: Cook Islands

The Cook Islands aren't a large destination to visit, but they still bear a football league of half a dozen teams in their First Division of league play, all of which were formed in 1950 and have competed in the Avarua Tereora Stadium on Rarotonga (which was built in the mid-1980s). Though the early history of the division saw Titikaveka F.C. take the majority of league wins, the OFC Champions League wasn't formed until 1987, meaning that later juggernaut Tupapa Maraerenga F.C. saw the O-League more often.

Answer: Samoa

The Football Federation Samoa, founded in 1968 in the Samoan capital of Apia is the governing body of the Pacific nation's football league (simply named the Samoa National League). Although there are often twelve teams playing in the league, all of them play out of the National Soccer Stadium in Apia with the three teams in question having strong track records, winning the Samoa Cup on relatively even ground since the league debuted.

Naturally, the national team for Samoa has a rivalry against the team from American Samoa just a short distance east.

Answer: Papua New Guinea

Headquartered in the capital city of Port Moresby, the PNGFA (or the Papua New Guinea Football Association) received status from FIFA forty years before they established a National Soccer League, (which they did in 2006). Although there has been a number of teams to pass through the league, its early history was dominated by only two of them -- Lae City and Hekari United (the top teams in the north and south of the country, respectively). Lae City was originally registered as Toti City FC.

Answer: New Zealand

New Zealand's football legacy predates most other nations and islands in Oceania. Being established in 1891 it's had a bumpy road in terms of recognition, being a temporary member of the Asian leagues at one point and even attempting to loop in with South America's league systems. The national team, the All-Whites, attended their first FIFA World Cup in 1982, returning again in 2010 for the Group Stages in South Africa.

The New Zealand Football Championship was replaced in 2021 by the New Zealand National League on the home front, and it led to a top tier division of ten teams across the islands. The three selections for this question are amongst them.

Answer: Fiji

It's the Fiji Premier League that composes itself of Fiji's top eight football teams. Forming in the mid-1970s, the system here has been known to be more consistent than other nations; due to Fiji's size, there are only so many locations to house teams. Because of this, the eight teams fit neatly into a round robin schedule leading to, inevitably, a point system which could see a playoff at the end of a season. Ba F.C., considered to be one of the top teams of the nation, have won this championship more than twenty times.

Answer: Solomon Islands

The Solomon Islands S-League, founded in 2000, is the top tier league of the six islands' football operations and while the country has had governed football clubs since the late 1970s, it was with the establishment of the S-League that players saw more regulation in what was interprovincial tournaments. Though the league has seen a lot of wins given to the capital's Solomon Warriors F.C., other teams to win the Solomon Cup since its debut are the examples listed in this question.

Answer: Vanuatu

Vanuatu has an interesting history that involves Spanish settlement as well as French and English exploration, and it's clear that those influences provided influence for the Melanesian people who established Vanuatu Football Federation all the way back in 1934.

The Port Vila Football League, named after the nation's capital, has several leagues topped out by a Premier League of eight teams all competing for the Port Vila Shield. Tafea F.C., one of the options in this question, won the first fourteen consecutive championships (from 1994 to 2007) before they were overthrown by Amicale.

Answer: Tahiti

After Australia and New Zealand, the fédération tahitienne de football has been one of the most celebrated in the region, managing to make a strong showing at O-League competitions year over year. For the sake of the sport Tahiti covers all of French Polynesia, taking in teams from several islands but focusing most of its attention on the higher population of Papeete. Tahiti Ligue 1 varies between ten and twelve teams but, in its history, most championship cups have gone to A.S. Central Sport. Pirae, meanwhile, was sent to represent Oceania in the FIFA Club World Cup in 2021.

Answer: Tonga

Tonga is another island nation that has had British influence in its history, so once again it might come as no surprise that football also has a home there. Its best players rise through the ranks to the national team, but getting there means passing through the Tonga Major League and its Premier Division. All three teams in the question here are multiple-time winners of the Tonga Cup. Lotoha'apai United, for instance, won more than a dozen times, blocking out all other teams from taking the top prize in the 2000s.