Informative, in-depth analysis and opinions on the Filipinas in the podcast Futbol Brew. Started listening before the tournament and got me more engaged as I learned more about the players and what goes on outside the field. Player interviews were great. The latest episode just came out and discussions were insightful. Highly recommend. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futbol-brew/id1613364463 https://www.facebook.com/FutbolBrew
I have listened to previous podcasts and enjoyed them. I didn't know there was one today. It does include a mixture of English and Tagalog(Filipino language) though in case anybody is wondering in many of the podcasts which might be a hindrance for those who don't speak the latter.
One of the PWNT players starting right back Eva Madarang made her own personal VLOG of the AFF Women's Championship on Youtube from the perspective of the players themselves including an initiation dance for the newcomers. Nice production Eva and Congratulations.
Alcantara showed that you can still be a great footballer(FC Barcelona's first superstar) and still be a doctor at the same time which should serve as an example for Eggesvik. Here is a pic of him with his Philippine club Bohemian Sporting Club and the 1917 Philippine national football team(still played under the banner of the US because the Flag Law of 1907, also known as “An Act to Prohibit the Display of Flags, Banners, Emblems, or Devices Used in the Philippine Islands for the Purpose of Rebellion or Insurrection Against the Authority of the United States” prohibited the Filipinos from using or displaying the Philippine flag, the Katipunan flag, banners, and emblems as well as the playing of the Philippine national anthem which was eventually lifted in 1919 after the passage of the Philippine Autonomy Act). They still employed the attacking 2-3-5 Pyramid formation back then, the most popular formation of that time, the same formation Uruguay used to win the first World Cup and the 2 preceding Olympic football gold medals before that. Alcántara ended his football career (at the age of 31 to become a full time doctor) as one of Barcelona's all-time greats, and was the club's record goalscorer(despite taking off 2 seasons to study medicine while playing football in the Philippines), having scored 395 goals in 399 official and friendly matches, a club record that stood for 87 years until Messi broke it a few years ago. FIFA named Alcantara the greatest Asian footballer of all time in 2007.
The PFF announced recently getting invites for friendlies against New Zealand(#22) and Costa Rica(#37) for the PWNT(#53) to be played abroad probably in the next 2 FIFA windows. Both countries are headed to the WWC as well and are higher rated than the Philippines. The friendly against New Zealand is rumored to be played in a neutral venue in the US. Today they also announced that Jamaica and Uzbekistan will be willing to travel to the Philippines to play against the PWNT which they are planning to schedule during the November FIFA window. Jamaica also qualified to the WWC by placing 3rd in the CONCACAF Women's Championships next only to the US and Canada. It might be rated at #51 2 spots higher than the Philippines but should receive a huge bump in the August FIFA rankings after defeating many higher ranked nations in the CONCACAF WC last week. Uzbekistan is currently ranked 8 spots higher than the Philippines at No. 46 and ruled the Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) Women’s Championship more than a week ago. The friendlies at home should allow the PFF to sell some seats and market the PWNT even more to fans at home. All of the teams listed above are rated higher than them in the current FIFA Womens' rankings. I hope they schedule more games though against teams from the other confeds CONMEBOL, UEFA and CAF as well.
Actually acc. to the PFF President, the friendly against New Zealand might be moved to Dubai so they can schedule a game against a CAF team as well in the same FIFA window.
@Bauser Aside from Eggesvik, the PWNT should also invite fellow Norwegian 25 y.o. Meryll Krysteen Abrahamsen Rosales Serrano to training camp. She plays starting attacking mid(#10) for Arna-Bjørnar Fotball in the top tier Toppserien league in Norway. She even looks Filipina. She used to play for the Norwegian national youth teams. https://kfl.no/wiki/index.php/Meryll_Abrahamsen I think the article says that she has 7 caps for the Norwegian U23 team and might still be in their respective national team pool just like Pacheco(England), Hiatt(US) and Watt(US). Maybe @Dernhelm can ask Sara Eggesvik to talk to her if she would be interested in playing for the Philippines in the Women's World Cup next year.
I must admit, I don't know whether Meryll is Filipina or not. I've read nothing about her roots even after all these years as a Toppserien player. Nothing about her ethnic background comes up googling her in the languages I can understand (Filipino is not one of them!). She has been injured for months, I know that much, and hasn't played a minute in Toppserien 2022. Meryll Abrahamsen is certainly a bigger name player than Sara Eggesvik in Norway. Meryll has several seasons of Champions League football on her CV from the Avaldsnes days. I don't know whether she has been on the radar for Norway's senior NT, but she has certainly been a top player in Toppserien during her best spells. Creative player with low centre of gravity. A typical number 10 which Arna Bjørnar have missed a lot this season. They are currently struggling at the bottom section of the table with a bunch of injuries on key players (including Meryll).
When you see an Asian looking player with Spanish surnames and middle names, you can pretty much bet he or she is a Filipino/a. If she is interested I would recommend that she start the process of getting a Philippine passport while injured which can take awhile. She has been mentioned in a list of prospective Filipino European based pro players on social media with verified Filipino roots. The FIFA Women's World Cup won't be until next year so she still would have time to recover from her injury. She certainly won't be the only one sidelined by a long term injury on the PWNT that they expect will challenge for a spot in the World Cup roster next year.
Thoughts on this sentence:? The Philippines and Vietnam only qualified because Australia are hosts and North Korea withdrew.
The PWNT made the semis(final 4) of the Asian Cup. I think they deserved their place in the WC just like Jamaica and Costa Rica did in the CONCACAF. They have also improved every time they got together in training camp after the Asian Cup not only in terms of adding more pros with UEFA experience to the squad but also in terms of gameplay and individual fitness and skill. They lost 0-1 to a UEFA side Ireland in their friendly in June which could have easily have been a draw if not for one of their players slipping while clearing a ball gifting a goal to an Irish player who basically pushed the ball into the Philippine goal. If they continue to improve at the same rate in the next year I think they have a chance of making it out of their group(even from a pot 3 or 4 position in the draw) particularly if they continue adding more pros with top tier UEFA and NWSL(US) experience to the squad while getting to gain experience from friendlies against teams all over the world.
The draw was a bit unbalanced though with India in pot 1. And Australia needing to face Korea in the quarter finals, and then the added wierdness of Australia being hosts. Hopefully the next Asian cup is 16 teams.
The draw at the AFC Asian cup was sure unbalanced, so Australia had to meet South Korea in the quarter-finals, but anyway they've lost their match, so, arguably, if Australia had needed to qualify through that tournament, they could have failed, while Philippines made it with their own forces. Would the format or the draw have been different if Australia hadn't been the host of the world cup? Maybe yes, maybe no, but that's a lot of "ifs". About North Korea, they basically gave up with their football program since years, by now, to the point that you have to wonder why FIFA keeps granting them their position in the rankings. So, I wouldn't treat that as a "special circumstance" by now.
Honestly I don't think it's likely, remember there are very likely to be 12 Uefa teams at the next world cup plus add in the usual powerhouses of Japan, USA, Brazil and Australia. It's very likely that all 12 of the Uefa teams would've played in the euros, and they will have had more competitive experience playing up 10-12 home and away games over a year, no disrespect to the South East Asian games and AFF championship. Remember only one Uefa team failed to make it to the knockout stage in 2019.
The PWNT has improved a lot since the Asian Cup. Remember that many of their players did not play for nearly 2 years because of the Covid pandemic before getting together for training camp to prepare for the tournament. As a result they struggled to defeat Thailand 1-0 and only defeated Taiwan on PKs last January. Their loss to the S Korea was still very respectable at 0-2. They have improved a lot since then defeating the Thailand 3-0 in the AFC Cup a 2 weeks ago and 32nd ranked Vietnam 4-0 in the semis.
I understand that but certainly their coaching staff think they have a chance of surprising a few teams in the WC. "We are going to the World Cup not just to be there, but to compete" “If we’re not aiming for the top, I don’t understand the point of actually preparing, trying your best, sacrificing, and all the things that you do to try and be at your peak.” -Alen Stajcic, Filipinas head coach. There is still plenty of time for their players to get experience playing top sides from UEFA, CONCACAF and CONMEBOL and some of the new players they are trying to recruit are world class players in top tier leagues in the US and Europe .
Hopefully the majority of their friendlies are will be against uefa teams. Vietnam learned that there is still a long way to go when they played against France losing 7-0 and being outshot 31 to 1.
Right. The Philippines also dominated Vietnam as well 4-0 not only in a friendly but in a meaningful AFF Championship semifinals and everyone in the team feel they still have lots of room to improve between now and next year. They can't schedule friendlies against UEFA teams in the next 2 FIFA windows because of the UEFA WC qualifiers, but hopefully they will do so next year. In the meantime they have scheduled friendlies against WC bound teams like New Zealand, Costa Rica and Jamaica for now. The PFF also plan to schedule a 4 team mini-tournament of WC bound teams at home just before the World Cup and I presume they will invite teams that play the same style as the teams they will be facing in their WWC group.
I'm surprised they are still trying to recruit any world class players right now. Would have got them already on the team if possible then to wait with about a year to go.
Hopefully friendlies against the top 16 national teams will be realized. Upsets in Uefa wwcq have been very few, but we need to take inspiration from this massive upset Serbia did against Germany
https://www.spin.ph/football/friend...line-for-filipinas-says-araneta-a795-20220719 https://globaldailymirror.com/Main/...ournaments-vs-new-zealand-jamaican-teams24000 Mariano said that teams from Africa, Jamaica, New Zealand, and Uzbekistan are interested in playing against the Filipinas. "Hopeully, we can arrange for them to play in Dubai against an African team and maybe New Zealand team," said Araneta. "Jamaica wants to come here in November. Hopefully, we can play Jamaica here and maybe one Asian country. Uzbekistan also wants to play here so maybe we can have a tri-nation tournament against Jamaican and against Uzbekistan," he added. What's sure is that the Filipinas are set for a pocket tournament against Costa Rica in October in preparation for the 2023 FIFA World Cup. "They are going to Costa Rica in October to play two games against Costa Rica," said Araneta.
Many of these players are still part of the team pool of their respective national football teams including the US, England, Canada and Norway and have played for those countries at the national youth team level. It would take a lot of convincing for them to change sides. Nevertheless they have added new players with UEFA pro experience at every training camp since the Asian Cup some of whom have ended up winning starting positions on the team so I anticipate even more additions in the future. I think the more success the Philippines have in future friendlies the greater the chance they can attract some of these world class players to their team particularly with a chance to play in the FIFA Women's World Cup next year to motivate them.
I am sure as an Aussie, you are familiar with how well the Australian coaching staff(particularly former Matildas coach Staj who led your country to it's highest ever FIFA ranking) of the PWNT prepares their teams for international competition. When he says that he thinks his current team will be able to compete against teams in the WC by this time next year, I tend to believe him.
Is Filipino-Danish Cathrine Buccat Graversen still on the radar for the WNT? she signed with my local club earlier this week (IK Uppsala, at the top of Swedish 2nd tier). Clubs page (in Swedish) IK Uppsala Fotboll - Elitettan