The Philippine Football Federation (PFF) is looking to connect the men’s and women’s national teams with the Filipino fans in an eventful November window. 

In an effort to build a sustained interest, the football governing body is setting up both squads for exciting fixtures and friendlies at home to solidify their connection with the home crowd. 

The Pinoy boosters will be participating in overseas tournaments in the Merdeka Cup in Malaysia followed by a stint in the King’s Cup in Thailand for the September and October windows leading up to the Mitsubishi Cup in November with scheduled FIFA friendlies in between. 

In those months, the Philippines will be up against  the national teams of Thailand, Syria, Tajikistan, Malaysia and Afghanistan as it also prepares heading into a busier season next year. 

The men’s side is coming off a disappointing campaign in the preliminary joint qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2027 AFC Asian Cup last month. 

Under the guidance of Tom Saintfiet, who has overseen four games so far, the Neil Etheridge-captain squad wound up with no victory but a lone draw and four losses in its group table. 

Despite the results on paper, the men’s team showed great promise and has been evidently playing with more gusto since Saintfiet has taken over. 

“So November is gonna be a jam packed schedule for the fans. I don’t think it’s ever been done where we’ve had six, seven, eight games in a span of a month between both national teams. We’re excited for that and hope that everybody comes out to watch both teams,” said newly-appointed Filipinas team manager Freddy Gonzalez. 

Since last year, the PFF has been targeting 10,000-strong crowds in all of the slated home games, and has so far succeeded in drumming up the much-needed support. 

It will be a little tricky for the Filipinas side this time, which is reeling from the departure of their long-time team manager Jeff Cheng. 

Though no major changes have been put into motion yet since Cheng’s leaving, the rebuilding is expected to bring about changes anytime soon as things are still “under review.”

Following the Filipinas’ historic AFF Women’s Championship victory in 2022, the Pinay booters have yet to reunite with their newly-earned adoring Filipino fans since making their debut in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. 

“On the women’s side, we’re either gonna do friendlies here locally in October or we’ve been invited to a number of different tournaments abroad, so we might consider those first for October,” Gonzalez said. 

“But for the November window, which is November 25 to December 7, they will play games in between our Mitsubishi Cup home games.”

“We’re gonna be having the teams here a lot, especially next year. We have Asian Cup qualifying for the men’s, we have three games. Most FIFA windows, we’re gonna try to do them here so that the fans can really connect with the national teams and vice versa,” said Gonzalez. 

“Sometimes some players don’t feel that connection with the crowd, so we want to change that. We want both fans and players to connect more, November and December are going to be great months for football.”