LLOYD LIVING IN FANTASY ISLAND

IT’S not very often that a coach is provided with a blank canvas and an opportunity to shape the footballing fortunes of an entire nation.

- Richard Edwards

Then again, it’s not every day that a tiny chain of islands which has never previously had a football team comes knocking.

The Marshall Islands are outliers in every sense. Spread across five islands and 29 coral atolls, the country sits slap bang in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There are only two ways to get there, one involves a flight from Hawaii, the other a transit from Brisbane. In short, it’s a long, long way from Oxford City.

That was the most recent stop-off in Lloyd Owers’ coaching career before the Marshall Islands came calling out of the blue towards the end of 2022. Now he’s overseeing the setting up a national team entirely from scratch, as the last country on earth to have one begins playing catch-up with the rest of the world.

“We started on January 5, pretty much,” Owers, 33, says. “We had ownership from the board, who basically said to us ‘just go and do something’, because since the board was set-up in 2020 but had pretty much sat idle.