Paul Watson chronicled his improbable exploits coaching a tiny Pacific island team in his cult 2012 book Up Pohnpei. More than 10 years on, with Micronesia still struggling for FIFA recognition, an unexpected email inspired him to return this summer, and document the trip for FFT...
“Coach Watson, I’ve got Micronesian ancestry and I’ve been trying to contact the FA to play for the under-17s, but I’ve been coming up dry everywhere I look. I was hoping you’d have some advice?”
Kenny Aldana, 2022
Despite FIFA’s claim to ‘develop football everywhere’, there are still spots on the world map that remain exiled from the football family. Currently, six sovereign nations aren’t members of any FIFA confederation. When you discount Monaco and Vatican City, they are all in Oceania: the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia.
With a population of about 110,000 across four main islands – Chuuk, Yap, Kosrae and Pohnpei – Micronesia has welcomed football since the 1990s, but attempts to engage FIFA have failed, leaving the game’s status at the mercy of the energies of volunteers. To the north east of Papua New Guinea, the four islands are separated by huge distances – Yap and Pohnpei are nearly 1,400 miles apart – with exorbitant airfares making it almost impossible to gather people in one place for tournaments, national team camps or even FA meetings.
A year before the turn of the millennium, Yap – famed for using stone money called rai – hosted a Micronesian Cup. The players had to bring grass from their homes to grow the pitch and the team was coached by volatile Israeli Simon Shenhar, who’d been deployed to the region as a thank you from the state after Micronesia’s support in votes at the UN.
Although Shenhar’s authoritarian style clashed with local customs, Micronesia’s newly formed outfit went on to thrash the visiting Northern Mariana Islands 7-0. These days, the Northern Mariana Islands are a full member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and football has gone from strength to strength there – their men’s national side will compete in Asian Cup qualification for the first time in 2024. In the Federated States of Micronesia, meanwhile, things remain at a grassroots stage.
Inspired by the Northern Mariana Islands and fellow neighbours Guam, Micronesia also attempted to join the Asian confederation – sadly, their most recent attempt ended in humiliating failure. With the sport blossoming following a successful football competition, won by Pohnpei, at the 2014
