{"id":402661,"date":"2023-12-29T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=402661"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"No-3-Nat-l-soccer-teams-perform-well-on-all-stages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/No-3-Nat-l-soccer-teams-perform-well-on-all-stages\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 3 Nat\u2019l soccer teams perform well on all stages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NMI Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s National Soccer teams put on quite a show on the international stage and back home.<\/p>\n<p>The 2023 Pacific Games in Honiara, Solomon Islands marked the NMI\u2019s Oceania debut. The men\u2019s national team paid their dues and won their first game in Oceania over American Samoa and also held their own against FIFA-ranked teams such as Fiji and Tahiti.<\/p>\n<p>As the men were competing in the South Pacific, the women\u2019s national team were underway in their competition in Zhuhai, China for the Women\u2019s EAFF E-1 Football Championships Preliminary Competition.<\/p>\n<p>They upset Mongolia and came away with a win against Mongolia and capped the tourney with a win against Macau for an even 2-2.<\/p>\n<p>This was also the first year back for the women\u2019s national team to compete in the Asian Football Confederation since the pandemic in 2020. The U20 Women\u2019s National Soccer Team competed in Palestine in the AFC U20 Asian Cup Qualifiers last March.<\/p>\n<p>Also, the NMI U15 Men\u2019s National Soccer Team competed in the FIFA Forward Developmental Programme EAFF U15 Men\u2019s Championship 2023 in Qingdao, China; and the NMI U17 Women\u2019s National Team competed in the AFC U17 Women\u2019s Asian Cup Qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p>Regionally last August, the NMI U23 men\u2019s and women\u2019s national teams completed a sweep of Guam\u2019s U23 men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams in the first Marianas Football Club matchup since 2019. This month, NMIFA\u2019s Eleven Tiger won the first Inaugural Marianas Club Championship against Guam\u2019s Wings FC.<\/p>\n<p> <figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/3640dc30f10b199c6aea8e4485591d82.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>NMI Women&#8217;s National Soccer Team player Pia Ngewakl, left, goes after the ball during their game against Mongolia during their upset match in the Women\u2019s EAFF E-1 Football Championships Preliminary Competition in Zhuhai, China last Nov. 30.<\/p>\n<p>-EAFF<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure> <figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/0ffd48818c05784dc9472264a251fd81.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>NMI Men&#8217;s National Soccer Team player Markus Toves, right, tangles for possession with a Tuvalu player during their last match in the 2023 Pacific Games last November in Honiara, Solomon Islands.<\/p>\n<p>-LEIGH GASES<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NMI Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s National Soccer teams put on quite a show on the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}