Cunliffe: FIFA Series is huge for Guam

Guam’s 42-year-old captain touches on defying age, a dream to play with his son and the importance of the FIFA Series.

• Guam are set to feature in the Puerto Rico round of FIFA Series action this month
• Western Pacific side face hosts and then either American Samoa or US Virgin Islands
• Captain Jason Cunliffe is the Matao's all-time leading scorer and appearance maker

Slung in the Western Pacific, at equidistant points from China, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines, the tiny territory of Guam has a resilience honed by centuries of isolation.

For the vast span of that existence, the indigenous Chamorro people have been seafarers, adapting and innovating to often harsh conditions. They set off from the island in boats known as proa or sakman, regarded as the first outriggers to employ an asymmetrical hull, which afforded them superior speed and mobility.

When the territory’s football team steps out this week in the FIFA Series™ in Puerto Rico, they’ll do so in a newly-designed kit and logo featuring the proa which, as their iconic captain Jason Cunliffe tells FIFA fills him with a sense of pride.

“If you look at the history books, when Europeans first saw our boats, they were the fastest they’d ever encountered. That talks about us, and is a mirror of our journey. We’ve always been explorers, and navigators, needing to find our home in Guam and that's basically also our football journey. We're celebrating our 50th anniversary as an association and now we want to see where the journey will take us over the next 50 years.”

It’s remarkable to think that Cunliffe has been along for close to half that journey. Having made his debut all the way back in 2006, he remains a central figure and the captain of a side for which he, comfortably, holds the all-time appearance and goals record tallies.

So enduring has been the 42-year-old’s longevity that he’s closing in on what would be an astonishing feat of paternal pitch sharing.

“My 13-year-old son Marciano is a big player, loves the game, wants to chase it. He’s currently with the Guam U-15 side and has been involved in tours with the team abroad. Our national team coach Ross Awa, gets to see him day-in, day-out and I think he’s one of the top players in that age group and that’s my goal for sure, to potentially try and play with him at full senior level.

“We've capped maybe three or four 16-year-olds in the last four or five years so there's a chance that we could pull that off if we both do well enough.”

Cunliffe is indivisible from the game on Guam, having ridden the highs of the team’s first FIFA World Cup™ qualification wins in 2015 to the rather more numerous lows. Even as the legs are slowing down, the smarts aren’t and he remains a Matao mainstay, committed to continuing to try and push Guam football forward.

“I still love the game so much and get the same joy from it that I did when I was a kid. Over the years I’ve fallen in love with the grind of it and making sure to put the work in when nobody’s watching.

“It’s about a feeling that I’m working towards something bigger than myself and that there’s still so much to be accomplished."

“My ultimate goal is that I want to have at least 11 players on the Guam national team that are better than me and we have a couple of players now that I think are ready to take the torch and carry it forward.

“There’s been so much work though over the past two decades to take the programme forward that I’m not ready to let that fall by the wayside.

“When I feel comfortable that there's someone there that can take the programme to the next level, they can push me out and I’ll step aside and let the next generation kind of take over but the reality is I love it and I can still compete at a very high level.”

With the team having not featured in a competitive match during the previous calendar year, the arrival of the FIFA Series offers Cunliffe and his team-mates a vital chance to get back into action.

Set to face the section hosts Puerto Rico first up, they will then tussle with either the US Virgin Islands or American Samoa in Bayamon on 28 March.

Cunliffe is approaching these matches as the first step on the road to the qualification campaign for the 2030 World Cup, as a well as a chance to bank vital points and help them advance on the FIFA/Coca-Cola Men’s World Ranking table.

“This is huge for us, especially with the support from FIFA and it is great to participate in something such as this with like-minded nations that are trying to grow and improve.

“We have a lot of young faces in the squad and players with real potential and so it's a great opportunity for myself and a few of the vets to kind of lead these younger boys who are excited to test themselves. Then to see if we can push up the rankings ahead of the next World Cup qualifiers starting.

“Everybody in the group believes that we are way better than 201st, where we currently are. It hurts to see that and I don't believe it's a realistic reflection of our ability and now we have a chance to prove that.”

When those matches are done, Cunliffe will head back to his current base in Arizona where he is set to embark on what will be a quarter of a century of club football. Last year, at the age of 41, the veteran forward became the second oldest outfield player to have featured in a US Open Cup match as his team FC Arizona fell to LAFC 2.

As much as he’s not yet ready to hang up the boots, he’s also excited about the coaching journey that is being undertaken in parallel, where Cunliffe is currently part of the Barcelona Residency Academy.

“I’m really enjoying my time in the Barca set-up and I’m also part of a networking group that has some really smart people in it where we regularly meet up and exchange ideas.

“There are guys there from Man City, Palermo, Brondby, Juventus and other huge clubs. At our first meeting we asked each other where we want to be in five years and I went right ahead and put it out there, because I want to reach the highest levels of the game.

“So, I told them that my goal is to be part of the staff at a first division club in Europe within the next five years, and that ideally it'd be at Arsenal.”

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Selected images courtesy of John Sadiarin/Guam Football Association