The Philippine women’s national football team surely "stamped class and made a stance" in the first round of the AFC Olympic Qualifying Tournament after dominating Group E to advance to the next round. *Forward Sarina Bolden and Filipinas head coach Alen Stajcic. (PFF)*


The Filipinas had a clean sheet throughout the first round to march straight to the next part of the tournament which left Pakistan, Tajikistan and Hong Kong in the dust. But now that the relatively breezy part is done, the Filipinas are up against countries on the top of the chain including ASEAN neighbors Vietnam and Thailand, which are ranked No. 33 and No. 44 by FIFA, respectively. For the second round, the 12 teams that swept their first round assignments will be drawn into four groups of three and seeded according to their latest FIFA ranking at the time of the draw. “We played very well. We controlled the game well, probably the best control we’ve had this week here against good opposition, an opposition, 15 months ago we’ve only beat 2-1 in the last minute. So, it just shows how much we’ve improved but ultimately a lot of the parts of the game were very good. But our finishing has to be a little bit better to compete with the big nations in Asia,” said PWNT head coach Alen Stajcic. It was the first time the Philippines came away with a commanding win over the 79th-ranked Hong Kong compared to their past two meetings, which ended in a draw followed by a narrow 2-1 escape. Still, Stajcic remains all up in his arms as the Filipinas now begin the acid test in the second round of the Olympic qualifiers. In the previous edition for the Tokyo Games, the Philippines suffered a second-round exit at the hands of the now 37th-ranked Chinese Taipei, which similarly made it back to the next round this year. “We’ve improved a lot, but there’s still a lot of hard work to do. As you know, as everyone knows it’s not easy matching football every match is difficult and you have to respect your opponent,” he said. “And we know we’re coming up against big nations now in the next round: Australia, Japan, got two Koreas, Thailand and Vietnam. It’s gonna be very difficult for us, so we need to be ready.” For Filipinas forward Sarina Bolden, who came out with a brace for the Philippines in the conclusive win over Hong Kong on April 11, adapting to head tactician Stajcic’s system came with a particularly “ruthless” mindset for the early stages of the tournament. “It was just a good performance from us. I think from the beginning we just dominated. Coach [Alen] kinda talked about being ruthless and we’re trying to take advantage of not just about beating teams but making our stamp, making a stance and I think we did that today. Really proud of the team, really proud of the staff and just really hack it and move on to the next round,” Bolden concluded.