The Philippine women’s football team is set to play an unofficial closed training match against world No. 3 Sweden on July 17 in Wellington, New Zealand.
Per the Philippine Football Federation, the said friendly will serve as the last training match for the Filipinas before they open their historic campaign in the FIFA Women’s World Cup four days later.
“We thank our friends from the Swedish Football Association for working with us in making this match happen,” said PFF general secretary Atty Edwin Gastanes. “It’s a great opportunity for our Filipinas to test themselves against a world class team before the FIFA Women’s World Cup.”
The 46th-ranked Philippine team, its highest ranking before heading to the biggest football showpiece in about a month, is currently in Sydney, Australia for its training camp.
The friendly match against the Swedes will be the closest simulation of what the Filipinas could be getting themselves at as they face a set of much higher-ranked opponents in Norway (No. 12), Switzerland (No. 20) and host nation New Zealand (No. 25) in Group A.