Tonga

Tonga 2019-22 Home

Not a lot to talk about here, but more than you might expect for Tonga. Very basic design, but embroidered badge and a little bit of Lotto flair for the sleeve cuffs. The key part of the shirt is the almost scaled design across it though. Makes for an interesting pattern across the entirety of the shirt, which is rather nice. Otherwise, not much to it and there’s perhaps a bit too much white at the rear of the collar. But you don’t see a Tongan shirt every day!

Used across the 2019 Pacific Games, Tonga endured a torrid time of it. They started off things with a 13-0 loss to the new Zealand U23s, regained some honour with only a 2-0 loss to the hosts Samoa and then lost it again by losing 14-0 to Vanuatu and 8-0 to Papua New Guinea. This means they conceded 37 without reply, the only team that failed to score. One to forget.

While Tonga have always been one of the lowest ranked teams in the world, that sort of performance is actually unusual for them. Normally the Tongans manage to grab a win or two, competing against fellow Polynesian preliminary teams. They’ve never progressed out of any preliminary or Polynesian qualification stage nor escaped a Pacific Games group stage, though they’ve only been to 5 of those and 2 mini games. Aside from a 2003 draw against Papua New Guinea, they’ve never had a positive result against any team that wasn’t non-FIFA or a fellow preliminary side. However, only 2018 WCQ and the 2019 Pacific Games (as well as both Mini Games) had them go without a draw or a win.

Women’s football has very much been Tonga’s area, though. While the Nations Cup tends to be poorly populated with teams, they’ve still been active and, as with the men, always had at least 1 positive result. With more teams at the Pacific Games, Tonga have had more success there. Playing from the first women’s competition in 2003, they’d win bronze then silver in 2007! 2011 brought a 4^th place and the 2017 Mini Games also brought bronze, but some of their success has tapered off as larger nations dedicate more resources to the sport. They’ve also taken part in friendlies both outside and inside of the OFC which is rare in Oceania, let alone with the Polynesian nations. As with the senior side, the men’s youth teams tend to struggle and haven’t always been active, though they tend to perform better when grouped with their fellow preliminary nations. The highlight for them has to be the 2018 U19 Championship where, on goal difference, they edged out Samoa to qualify from the preliminary round.  Women’s youth teams again show a little more, even hosting the 2002 U19 and 2015 U20 Championships! Again, they tend to participate (only missing 2 U20 Championships) and almost always get at least 1 positive result. The U19s/20s took 3^rd place in 2002, 2010 and 2014 with a 2^nd place result in 2006, but again results have tailed off somewhat in recent years. However, they remain more dangerous than their size would indicate.

New to both futsal and beach soccer (both 2019 at senior level), they’re yet to register anything other than losses in either, but early days yet. In 2019 futsal they withdrew before the placement matches, but 2022 brought a close 6-5 loss to Samoa, showing that they’re likely to align with their Polynesian brethren again, as with football. They also played both genders of youth futsal in the 2017 tournaments from the OFC, beating American Samoa for the men and proving better than Samoa to take the Women’s Youth Olympics spot when New Zealand (who won the group by far) declined. While they lost every match at the 2018 Youth Olympics, they did come within 2 goals of Trinidad and Tobago, which is thoroughly respectable. They’ve only taken part in a single beach soccer competition to date, and none of the matches were terribly close. It remains to be seen if they’ll return.

Drawn in a preliminary round against the Cook Islands for 2022 qualification, Tonga could have hoped for a win to get them more than a single match. However, the eruption of a volcano back in Tonga prevented their participation and they withdrew.