The Club World Cup meaningless? Not to them

On a planet with so many sporting events, not every brain reckons the Club World Cup warrants merit - but then the heart might chime in with a retort: "Papua New Guinea".

The heart might win, as often.

Logically, the tournament slated for December seems one world event too far. It makes you wonder why Rafael Benitez must manage a club in Serie A and in the Champions League and the Coppa Italia and then, smack in the middle, journey on over to Abu Dhabi.

It seems extraneous and not sufficiently coveted by some for the trouble and the wear on bodies.

Would even the most feverish European or South American fanatic endorse sacking a manager over not winning it? (Wait. Never mind. Don't ask that.)

Well, you can forget about all these cold considerations as they bow to three proper words: Papua New Guinea.

Even before the draw for the Club World Cup was made yesterday in Switzerland, the name of the club Hekari United of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, had been lined up opposite Al Wahda, in the spot Hekari secured on May 2 in New Zealand.

We may not realise it in our general, global ignorance of Papua New Guinea, but this qualifies as a chunk of football history.

In Hekari's corner of the globe, the minnow-heavy Oceania Football Confederation, Hekari's advancement became the first time a Pacific-island club from other than Australia or New Zealand had reached a Fifa world event. It stirred considerable joy. It filled the Jacksons International Airport in Port Moresby with revellers upon Hekari's return.

Hekari's Facebook fan site had comments such as: "An historic victory not only for PNG but for all Pacific-island footballers and football-lovers. You have etched your named in world footballing history. Legends one and all."

So the Club World Cup that might seem a European afterthought will matter deeply to many of the six million upon the eastern half of the world's second-largest island, in the Pacific nation with the staggering array of languages. And for the rest of us, the widely unnoticed rise of Hekari United can provide a pleasant diversion against, say, the depressing Wayne Rooney aftertaste.

As Hekari prepared in April for the two-leg Oceania League final against favoured Waitakere of New Zealand, they lacked one of their players, Gideon Omokirio, the full-back, who reportedly could not arrive until match day because he works as a banker in Honiara in the Solomon Islands and could not take leave.

With the charms of semi-professionalism hardly unprecedented in Oceania - remember the Auckland City club that defeated Al Ahli in the last Club World Cup - this had the added element of Papua New Guinea with all its freshness.

So as the match approached, the team manager, who is the wife of the owner, urged all citizens to wear red to the stadium. Some 15,000 in red did turn up on April 18 to notch a likely national attendance record and, as it happened, to chant, "Hekari! Hekari!" during the closing moments of the whopping 3-0 win in the Kiwi-sapping humidity.

That win sent the whole tete-a-tete 4,000 kilometres southeast to Waitakere, New Zealand, for a return match on May 2, before which the New Zealand Herald opined: "New Zealand teams tend to make short work of Pacific teams at home in the O-League."

Waitakere did win but not by enough (2-1), and a club that did not exist in the 1900s from a country that had never placed a club in a football stratosphere stood bound for Abu Dhabi. Formed early last decade as a second-division club and titled PRK Souths United until 2007/08, Hekari United have won four league titles in the four-year-old Papua New Guinea National Soccer League.

In the fashion of the era, they have been shopping, their winning squad last spring incorporating six Solomon Islanders and two Fijians. They also have clambered out of a thicket in the O-League, where in the six-club Group B they started off drawing 3-3 with Tafea of Vanuatu and losing 2-1 at home to Lautoka of Fiji.

From there they blew through the next six matches with 15 goals. They relied heavily on seven goals from Kema Jack, the son of a tugboat master who won the description in the PNG Post-Courier as "the Papuan death adder".

They apparently have a bulwark defender in Koriak Upaiga, a midfielder in Alick Maemae, who forced a penalty in New Zealand, and steady help from Fijians Tuimasi Manuca and Pita Bolaitoga.

The very idea that those names known only to parts of the quietest corner of the world, from a club just up from outright dust, could turn up two upsets from playing Inter Milan … Well, it means that while many will go to Zayed Sports City to see stars, the starry-eyed among us will go to see Papua New Guinea. It rather justifies the excess, at least according to the heart.

cculpepper@thenational.ae