The Samoa U16 football team finished fifth in the Oceania U16 Men's Championship 2024 hosted in Tahiti after they defeated Cook Islands, 2 - 1 on Friday (Samoan time).

Coach Valerio Raccuglia is very happy about his team's efforts as they've had some great achievements throughout the tournament.

"This is the first team to win two games in the same tournament and scored in every game. We've had three man of the match out of four games. First ever clean sheet. It was a successful tournament without much preparation," he said in an interview.

"I would say it was a very successful tournament for Samoa, if you think we got the team together in four days before the tournament started and delivered things that were never done before. 

"Everyone worked hard to achieve what we achieved. Hopefully, this is the start of something special for football in Samoa. We need to keep building on these last two campaigns."

The U16 has no other competitions coming up for this year. The team will be coming in separate flights. The first batch of players will arrive on Tuesday and others on Friday. 

Samoa lost to Solomon Islands and the host nation Tahiti. However, they won against New Caledonia during their first match of the championship, and won again in their match against Cook Islands for fifth place.

Bevan Junior Kapisi, Dante Leota, and Alonzo Taulapapa were the awardees of the players of the match during the whole championship in Papeete