THE Philippine women’s football team takes on a new test in its next international friendly when it faces Kenya in its final game in the Pink Ladies Week in Antalya, Turkey on Wednesday.
It will be the first known match-up by the Philippines against an African nation at 9 p.m. Philippine time, a friendly that will provide a boost for the team in their future competitions.
“Kenya, they are not someone to be looked down upon,” said Filipinas goalkeeper Olivia McDaniel.
“They have some good games. It’s a first African opponent I think that we are going to be up against. It’s going to be a challenge and I think we are not going to take it lightly at all even though we are coming off a high with our 3-0 win.”
McDaniel was referring to the Philippines’ victory over Jordan last Saturday in their first friendly in six months. McDaniel said playing against Jordan had the World Cup campaigner Filipinas regaining their cohesion.
READ: Sarina Bolden scores brace as Filipinas beat Jordan in friendly
“I think we’ve just been continuing to work on our possession and in our attack and our build-up play and just working together and our cohesion as a team. We’ve been away from each other for a while now. Getting that cohesion back has been super important the last couple of days. We are getting through the nitty gritty of everything but it’s coming together,” said McDaniel.
The current international friendly has seen several new faces in the squad including Aston Villa defender Maz Pacheco, who is still awaiting for her Philippine passport has already joined the Filipinas training camp.
Making a debut for the Filipinas last Saturday was former UCLA defender Janae DeFazio, who made an immediate impact when she delivered an assist to Sarina Bolden for the first goal of the match against Jordan.
Filipinas coach Mark Torcaso said the friendly against Kenya is once again part of the process as they build-up the new group.
“It will take a while. This is going to take three to six months to get it close to right, and we have to build over the next six to 12 months to make sure that we are going to be good at it.”
“There are good signs. But we need to get better and better every single game. We can’t settle on the 3-0 result. We have to be better every single game. We have to keep on working to what we want to do. And we are going to make sure that we always have a winning mentality,” said Torcaso.
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