Some of the fastest feet and sharpest shooters from the Pacific region will show off their skills at the Oceania Football Confederation’s Futsal Championship Invitational in New Caledonia this week.

While the competition has been taking place for a decade, this will be just the second time the ‘invitational’ tag has been applied, allowing organisers to extend an invite to teams from the Asian Football Confederation.

The tournament will see teams from New Caledonia, New Zealand, Tahiti and Vanuatu, as well as Malaysia compete over five days.

OFC Futsal and Beach Soccer Development Officer Paul Toohey says Malaysia will be the front runners to take out the tournament.

“I think Malaysia will be the favourites just because of the amount of games they’ve had,” he said.

“I think look out for Vanuatu, they were a young side last year but have been training very hard.”

Last year Australian and Malaysia were invited to the competition where they finished first and second respectively.

Despite their dominance, Toohey says there’s not much difference in the skill levels between the teams from the Oceania and Asian confederations.

“I think tactically Malaysia is a little more astute, obviously they play in the Asian confederation so they have opportunity to play more games,” he said.

“If we look at last year Tahiti got a three-all draw with Malaysia before losing to them in a penalty shoot-out.”

“So the gap is getting closer and closer.”

The Oceania Football Confederation’s Futsal Championship Invitational begins with New Zealand taking on Malaysia, before Vanuatu and Tahiti take to the court.

While the teams will be desperate to win the Oceania tournament, the sides will also have one eye fixed on making the Futsal World Cup in Columbia in 2016.

Pacific nations will be hoping to emulate Solomon Islands who have qualified for the past two Futsal World Cups.

Toohey says getting more games and spending more time on the court is crucial for teams in the Pacific if they are to be more competitive on a global level.

“The thing with the teams is they need games, next year is the world cup qualifier and one of the difficult things for the futsal teams in the pacific is to just get enough games to be competitive,” he said. “Some like this tournament is very important for that.”

Futsal is a variant of soccer that is played on a smaller field and mainly played indoors. It can be considered a version of five-a-side football.

Its name comes from the Portuguese futebol de salão, which can be translated as “hall football”.

It was developed in Brazil and Uruguay in the 1930s and 1940s.