Benjamin Totori is one of the most prolific players from Pacific Islands alongside Fijian star Roy Krishna. Both players had the opportunity to play professionally for Wellington Phoenix in A-League, the most important football league in Australia. While Krishna had his first full professional contract with Phoenix, Totori crossed the Pacific Ocean in 2008 to live this dream in America.
Totori was a sensation in Oceania in 2008. He helped Waitakere United to win New Zealand Football Championship and OFC Champions League in the 2007-08 season. The young Solomon Islander scored ten goals in 18 matches in the league and also scored an important goal in 2007-08 OFC Champions League final. He also won 2008 OFC Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament‘s Golden Boot representing his homeland.
In April 2008 it was announced that Totori would make it big by signing a professional contract with Portland Timbers from United States of America. He traveled to USA a few days after winning the Champions League. At that time the Timbers were not part of Major League Soccer (MLS) yet. The football team from Oregon was a member of United Soccer League (USL), a secondary tournament in the country.
Totori made his debut on May 26 against Miami FC by entering the game at the start of the second half adding life to a 10-man Timbers side. He also played a second match on May 30 against Montreal Impact but this match changed his luck: a sprained right medial collateral ligament – “The American League was a different style, a different atmosphere than matches here in Oceania. Everything went well in the Montreal match. I nearly scored in the last minute of the game. I even saw a Solomon Islands flag in the match against Montreal, it was great lift. Then I hurt my knee in injury time,” he said.
The Solomon Islander forward missed six official matches due to this injury. He returned to the team in July but once again he was forced to stop. He re-injured his right knee during a training session on July 16 and missed the rest of the season – “I recovered in three weeks but then I trained and played two exhibition games against a Mexican team, and in the second game the injury flared up again and it was no good. It took me the rest of the season to recuperate,” Totori recalls.
According to Portland Timbers official media, he returned to the Solomon Islands in late July to begin his rehab but he never returned to the team. The Timbers finished the 2008 USL season in the last position and Totori went back to Waitakere United. Four years later, in 2012, he had the opportunity to join Wellington Phoenix and play professionally again.
These injuries prevented him to make it big in the USA but it did not prevent him to become a true legend in Oceania specially in his country.
Oceania Football Center 
Come back to play for lautoka 😍😍😍
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