At A Glance
- The Philippine women's national football team is bracing for another international debut, this time against fellow Asian teams.
The Philippine women’s national football team is bracing for another international debut, this time against fellow Asian teams.
The world No. 44 Filipinas have started getting acquainted with newly appointed mentor Mark Torcaso as they prepare for their Asian Games campaign this September in Hangzhou, China.
Landing in Group E, the Philippines was tangled with South Korea (No. 20), Myanmar (No. 51) and Hong Kong (No. 77), all familiar opponents from the past.
Initially expected to assemble at the end of August, some members of the squad are still fulfilling their club team duties, having previously signed or returned to their commitments overseas.
Despite the short turnaround to the Asiad and his appointment with the squad, Torcaso is glad that the players have made themselves available to the call-up.
“All the players are available for the Asian Games which is excellent. Obviously, some of them have commitments now with clubs that they have just signed for or they’ve been with and committed to. So, our expectations they’ll be there for the Asian Games and we’ll just pick the best possible side that’s available and be as prepared for that as possible,” Torcaso said.
After having gauged the team’s physical and mental capacity following the grueling training camp leading up to the FIFA Women’s World Cup, Torcaso is quite pleased with what he is seeing so far.
“It’s been really good like this was all about just tryna engaged with the players obviously for them to understand us as a coaching staff. For them to get to know how we wanna play and what we wanna do and as I’ve said, it is a short turnaround to the Asian Games and we will do our best to make sure that we prepare the side for that tournament and then obviously for the Olympic qualifiers as well in the end of October,” he added.