New Zealand have won a 12th OFC U-16 Men\u2019s Championship title, defeating Fiji 5-0 in the final of the 2026 edition at PNG Football Stadium in Port Moresby. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Davi Valles Dos Santos scored two of New Zealand\u2019s five goals in a dominant victory to cap an equally dominant campaign, scoring 24 goals in five matches at the tournament in Papua New Guinea.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
New Zealand had taken 50 minutes to breakdown the host nation in the semi-finals but needed just 90 seconds on the contrary here against Fiji in the final. Zach Cashmore nodded the Junior All Whites in front from a corner delivery at the near post to send them on their way \u2013 scoring New Zealand\u2019s earliest-ever goal in a final at the tournament. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Two more goals followed before the end of the first half, as Martin Bullock\u2019s side\u00a0made sure of the title inside the first 45 minutes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Davi Valles Dos Santos got the second in the 36th\u00a0minute, after Fiji\u00a0failed to\u00a0clear their penalty box, and\u00a0Cashmore was involved again for the third goal, his delivery deflecting off the knee of Fijian defender\u00a0Somit Maharaj in first half stoppage-time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Playing in just a third OFC U-16 Men\u2019s Championship final, Fiji did at least create some chances of their own, Ryan Swami powering the ball over the crossbar with the best of them\u00a0from a corner delivery in the second half.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another defensive error led to the fourth New Zealand goal though, substitute Jack Clegg stealing possession inside the box and picking out the back of the net in the 76th\u00a0minute, moments after entering the field of play off the bench.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Clegg then turned provider four minutes later, picking off a poor pass, and rolling the ball into the path of Valles Dos Santos to score his second, and New Zealand\u2019s fifth and final goal of the evening. \u00a0<\/p>\n
New Zealand lifted the trophy for the 11th consecutive time at the final whistle, maintaining their dominance of the OFC U-16 Men\u2019s Championship and the Oceania region.<\/p>\n
Fiji: 0\u00a0
New Zealand:\u00a05\u00a0(Zach CASHMORE 2\u2019, Davi VALLES DOS SANTOS 36\u2019,\u00a081\u2019,\u00a0Own Goal 45+1\u2019, Jack CLEGG 76\u2019)\u00a0<\/p>\n
HT: 0-3\u00a0
Photo credit: OFC Media via\u00a0Phototek\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand have won a 12th OFC U-16 Men\u2019s Championship title, defeating Fiji 5-0 in the final of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-543439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}