Last week, the Marshall Islands men’s national soccer team played their first-ever match here in Springdale. Ozarks at Large’s Daniel Caruth was at the historic game and has this report.
It’s a humid August evening as hundreds of people pack the Jarrell Williams Bulldog Stadium in Springdale. The sun is just starting to drop behind the stands as two teams take the field, and this crowd is going wild.
But unlike most other nights in August, the crowd here is not cheering on gridiron football, but rather international soccer.
This is the Outrigger Challenge Cup, and tonight history is being made. The national anthem of the Marshall Islands plays through the speakers and the crowd moves to its feet, many of them draped in the orange, white and blue of the Marshall Islands flag. A few minutes later, with the blow of a whistle, the tiny island nation is no longer the last country in the world without a soccer team.
But why exactly is the first international match for the Marshall Islands taking place here — on a high school football field more than 6,000 miles away in landlocked Arkansas?
“When we started, we knew that there was Majuro and there was Kwajalein, and we didn't know there were Marshallese in the U.S. at that point, especially in Northwest Arkansas. And once we discovered that, we started to get word of mouth, people sending us footage of them playing. In the squad for this one, for example, we've got players from all over the U.S.”
That’s Lloyd Owers, technical director and head coach for the Marshall Islands Soccer Federation. A few days before the Outrigger Challenge Cup, he introduced this newly formed men’s soccer team to a group of supporters and community members at Mount Sequoyah Center in Fayetteville, where the team, as well as visiting squads from Turks and Caicos and the U.S. Virgin Islands, were staying.
Owers, along with fellow Brit Matt Webb and the federation’s president, Shim Levi, cooked up the idea for this tournament with the goal of bringing the Marshall Islands to the global sports arena.
“When we started like two and a half years ago, we had nothing. There was no football there, no soccer in the Marshall Islands at all. And in two and a half years now, we've gone from zero to where we are now and everything in between. So we have kids playing on island, we have adults playing on island, we have a coach education structure. And it’s just growing, growing, growing.
“But these games are like the pinnacle of it. Everyone’s looking at these pictures and how it promotes the project even further. So regardless of what happens on the field, the guys that are represented on the field are doing so much more. They are role models for people back home and for Marshallese in the states.”
Northwest Arkansas — and Springdale specifically — is home to the largest population of Marshallese people living outside of the islands. The nation of nearly 40,000 people has a special relationship with the U.S., which used some of the country’s atolls to conduct nuclear missile tests in the 1940s and ’50s, leaving devastating environmental and health impacts. Under a Compact of Free Association signed in the 1980s, islanders are able to live and work in the U.S. without a visa, and many found job opportunities here in Arkansas’ poultry production industry.
“We spent the last 20 years trying to educate Northwest Arkansas about who the Marshallese people are. And finally, I can say we did good. The people outside of our own community know who we are. And just the excitement level that I’m seeing from outside our own community is great.”
That’s Melisa Leilani, head of the Arkansas Coalition of Marshallese. She has lived in the region for decades.
“Sports are an important part of Marshallese and Pacific culture, though not necessarily soccer. As a Marshallese woman who moved here at a young age and growing up in the Marshalls, I don’t remember hearing about soccer games, so it’s a really new thing for me as well.”
Matthew John is the only team member from Springdale on the 21-player squad and says representing his country and his hometown in this way is something he never imagined could happen.
“Growing up, there were never really any other Marshallese players around me. I’m the only one from Arkansas, and that alone should be able to tell you how many Marshallese people actually play. So I think the main goal here is to inspire more youth to get into the world’s game and hopefully bring some silverware back home.”
The team is made up of players both from the islands’ two main atolls, Majuro and Kwajalein, as well as Marshallese living in the U.S. John says this is the first time many of the team members have ever met in person, let alone played together.
“Put on the nation’s colors, even though you’re in diaspora. I was born in America, but my roots have always been in the islands. My soul has been in the islands since I was born. So to just do that alongside half the other team, and then have guys that come from the islands, and to put that together and mesh it and see what it looks like was definitely a unique experience.
“It’s our first time playing together, two completely different styles. I’ve never met any of these guys, but I know that the moments that we make and the memories that we’re going to create together, on and off the pitch, I’m going to carry everywhere I go.”
Owers concedes the mix of experience levels, plus the short training period, have been a challenge. But he says winning is not the federation’s main goal right now.
“For us, it’s confederation membership, being recognized by a region. We have good justification for Oceania, for Asia, and also for Concacaf, with the good connection between the Marshall Islands and the U.S. and also the logistics side of it as well. So yeah, we’ve got a good opportunity for it to develop. Hopefully these games can put us in a spotlight where people can actually see what we’re doing and how this is going to play out over the next few years.”
He says the point of the Outrigger Challenge Cup is to eventually get the national team recognized by FIFA, the international organization that governs world soccer. Membership would give them the chance to participate in World Cup qualifiers and open significant revenue streams. Each of FIFA’s 211 members receives annual payments of about $2 million, regardless of size, wealth or historical connection with football.
“This would go a long way in developing soccer on the islands, which currently have no full-size soccer fields.”
Back at the stadium in Springdale, the team is holding off the Virgin Islands well when an early shot on goal brings a rumble and cheers from the stands.
Sitting in the front row, Lolita Kostek says she doesn’t really care about or pay much attention to soccer usually, but:
“I only came because the team is from the Marshall Islands. Our people never really play this sport. They always play volleyball, basketball and other sports, but not soccer. So I want to come out and support them.”
It’s a refrain many of the fans here tonight echo. Here’s Springdale High School junior Azur Leland Atlin:
“Seeing my country out there playing for the very first time — especially those who maybe are my cousins — it’s really a great opportunity to see my country playing out there and doing what other people don’t see. Because we island people, even the smallest Micronesians, we are not really known out in the world. And it’s really exciting to get our culture out there and see what we can do.”
In the end, the Marshall Islands take a loss, 4-0 against the U.S. Virgin Islands. But at the final whistle you’d never know it. The group rushes together and then, to a clamor of fans waving Marshallese flags, stretch their hands out to congratulate this almost impossible team.
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