The success of Malampa Revivors

Port Vila is the capital and most important city of Vanuatu – when someone ask us to mention a city in the country, most of the times we will think about Port Vila. The capital is also the land of the most important football clubs in the country, as Galaxy, Tafea, Erakor Golden Star and historical side Amicale.

But there is not only football in the capital: recently Nalkutan – a club based in Tanna, Tafea province – represented the country in an OFC Champions League edition, after winning the VFF National Super League in 2016. But Nalkutan is not the most succesful club outside Port Vila in Vanuatu: Malampa Revivors, the current national champions, takes part in the National Super League for several years and in the last edition won Galaxy in the final match in Port Vila to give them first ever national title for the club.

The club was created in 2010 by Elder Shem Dahmassing, as a youth ministry within the Youth Fellowship program of Centenary Presbyterian Church, at Sarakata in Luganville – in the Espiritu Santo island.

Since then their history of success is plenty: they played in the National Soccer League in its all previous editions and reached very positive results. In 2014 they lost to Amicale in the semi-finals and in the following year the same Amicale beat them, but this time in the final match.

In 2018 they qualified once again for the grand final against Erakor Golden Star, but were denied the title after losing in the penalty shooutout. But their lucky changed when they played the might Galaxy FC in the 2019 edition of the National Super League and beat the team coached by Moise Poida by 3-1.

The club already played in two editions of the OFC Champions League: 2017 and 2019. In their first appareance in the most important club tournament of the region, they lost all matches in a group that had Auckland City, Western Unied and Lae City FC. In 2019, they played against Hienghène Sport, AS Tefana and Lae City – just drawing one match against Tefana in their final group match.

Malampa Revivors will be back to action in the 2020 edition of OFC Champions League and will have a rare opportunity: to play the group stage at their home ground, the Soccer City Stadium in Luganville.

After playing six games in the continental tournament and just collecting one point, the team in blue and white will have the opportunity to win their first ever game in the Champions League in front of their home crowd.

With the success of the team, many players of the club represented Vanuatu internationally – both at youth and senior levels. The striker Andre Batick was in the last squad that represented Vanuatu in the Pacific Games 2019 held in Samoa. In the last OFC U23 Olympic Qualifiers Malampa Revivors had Tasso Jeffrey, Claude Aru and Armando Ravo called up to defend the national colours.

The club also dominates the football in the local league – Luganville Premier League – being the current title holders of the 2019 edition of the league. The new season in Luganville (2019/20) already started and Malampa Revivors won their both starting two matches of the competition to be at the top of the table.

The success seems to continue for Malampa at regional and national level, but will they expand it to the continental level? The OFC Champions League is coming and this tournament will give us an idea of how it goes.