The Fiji Football Association is arranging warm-up matches for the Vodafone Fijian men’s team to prepare for the 2018 FIFA World Cup playoffs.

This was confirmed yesterday by Fiji FA vice-president, Tarunesh Reddy, as the national side face the New Zealand All Whites and New Caledonia in the playoffs in March, next year.

These are not easy games and since we are without a national head coach, it has made things more difficult especially when time is not on our side. Right now the most viable option is to appoint a local coach for the 2018 FIFA World Cup playoffs. Getting in an overseas coach, is not going to help our campaign as he or she needs time to settle down apart from getting to know our players.

We need to bite the bullet and place our trust on the local coaches. And surely enough we’ve got talented people like Gurjit Singh, Imdad Ali, Kamal Swamy, Joseph Nand, Ronil Lal and Marika Rodu, who could do the job if given the support and the freedom to select their team.

This is nothing new! The late Billy Singh showed how it could be done when he coached our national football team to victories over New Zealand and Australia during the 1990 FIFA World Cup playoffs.

In selecting his team, Singh not only went for skilful players in the class of Ivor Evans, Simon Peters, Maritino Nemani, Abraham Watkins, Lote Delai, Ravuama Madigi and Bimal Sami. He also opted for a few hard nuts like Jone Watisoni, Pita Dau and Nasoni Buli, and together he moulded them into an unstoppable unit.

A local coach can still do the job but however, he must also consider the likes of Peni Finau, Malakai Tiwa, Napolioni Qasevakatini, Ilaitia Tuilau, Taniela Waqa, Valerio Nawatu and Edwin Sahayam, who have showed during the Courts Inter District Championship that they still have got what it takes to do our nation proud internationally.