The Pacific Island Of Nauru Plans Its First International Soccer Match

England and Scotland played their first soccer match in 1872, France in 1904, and Gibraltar in 2013.

This summer, the Pacific Ocean island of Nauru aims to add its name to the list of countries and territories that have played international soccer. And like many good ideas, it started with a pub crawl… well, sort of.

The island, about a third the size of Manhattan and with a population of around 12,000, currently doesn’t have a soccer team, but it does have a head coach, Englishman Charlie Pomroy.

Pomroy is currently the head coach, “accidental owner,” physio, chef and kitman, among other roles, for Cambodian side Angkor City, which he founded as a non-profit academy to help get kids off the streets.

He was persuaded to take the Nauru job by his colleague Gareth Johnson, who is the CEO of the Nauru Soccer Federation and runs Young Pioneer Tours, which does pub crawls around the island’s four pubs and a carvery.

Johnson, who once co-founded a crowdfunding project to buy an island in the Caribbean and create a micronation, says he has visited Nauru more than pretty much anyone who isn’t actually from there. He says soccer on Nauru does receive some government support and that he’s seen people having kickabouts there, but there’s no organized soccer structure.

Pomroy himself will visit the island for the first time in June or July. But he’s been busy inspecting facilities through Google Maps. He says the country has one pitch that’s good quality. There’s a catch though, he says that pitch appears to be inside a prison.

Nauru’s likely opponents this summer will be American Samoa, whose exploits were made famous by the recent film ‘Next Goal Wins.’ But Pomroy’s approach to coaching will be wildly different from the taskmaster style that Michael Fassbender’s character employs in the movie.

Pomroy, alongside former Stoke City and Reading forward Dave Kitson, who will be the team’s manager and will be in front of the media, are looking to guide the Nauru islanders and help them develop a style of play that fits their own culture.

Nauru may not have a soccer team right now, but it has shown that it can punch above its weight in other sports such as Australian Rules Football, the island’s most popular sport. Johnson says Nauru is quite a sporty nation, with basketball and rugby also played there, and Pomroy believes he can harness the athleticism and fearless of the islanders, and input some technical ability to create a decent side.

His and Kitson’s aim this summer is to whip up some excitement around soccer with a sort of “football festival,” that the whole island can get involved in, culminating in the island’s first international match. After that, they hope to implement a development program where boys and girls can play soccer at the island’s schools and perhaps create an amateur league. If all of those things happen, Pomroy will consider it a success.

Between now and that first game, there are bound to be challenges. While they have the blessing of Nauru’s government, the exact amount they can achieve will depend on how much money can be raised, mainly through shirt sales and sponsorship.

Pomroy says the first match will happen regardless, but with more funding, they can also bring over some players of Nauru heritage from Australia to level up the team and make them competitive, as well as provide more resources for the island to continue developing the sport. He says “it would just be a shame if we’re there on a shoestring budget” with just ten footballs or so.

Hong Kong fashion brand Giordano will provide the kits, and all the money from sales will go toward soccer on the island. Johnson says this is a big deal and that the kits will be a huge thing in the collectors’ market. He is also in contact with other potential sponsors and documentary production companies, with the aim to create something that can last well beyond Nauru’s first match.

As for what Pomroy wants to get from coaching Nauru, he says soccer has given him so much in life and he wants to impact as many people as he can with this game, and that going to an island where they’ve never played before is the best challenge someone like him could have hoped for.