THE top five teams of the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup will advance to the 2023 World Cup, but with Australia as one of the co-hosts and therefore guaranteed a spot, six will actually go through via the tournament. Simply put, the semifinalists will advance automatically.
As for the remaining slots, these will be contested through a repechage, the format of which will depend on whether Australia wins or loses in the quarterfinals.
EASIEST ROUTE
The easiest way to get in to the World Cup for the Philippines is to beat Chinese Taipei on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. (10 p.m. Philippine Standard Time) in their AFC Women's Asian Cup quarterfinal at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune, India.
As far as world rankings are concerned, Chinese Taipei has the higher placingat 39 while the Philippines is at No. 64. The last time the two teams played each other was during the second round of the 2020 Olympic Qualifying Tournament where Chinese Taipei won, 4-2, on April 6, 2019.
Fans though still have a lot of reasons to be optimistic, despite the previous result, with the Philippines under new head coach Alen Stajcic going into training camp for nearly three months prior to the competition.
REPECHAGE
In the event the Philippines bows to Chinese Taipei, the team still fondly called Malditas by their ardent supporters will be relegated to the repechage with another opportunity to make it to the World Cup.
If Australia advances to the semifinals, the four losing quarterfinalists will battle it out in a knockout match with two World Cup spots at stake. In the Philippines’ case, it will be facing the loser of the match between Australia and Korea.
If Australia fails to make it to the semifinals, the three other losing quarterfinals will compete with each other with the best team among them gaining the World Cup spot.
INTER-CONFEDERATION PLAYOFFS
In the unfortunate event that the Philippine team was unsuccessful, it still has one last chance to take the World Cup spot through the inter-confederation playoffs in February 2023. This route though will be much more difficult as the Malditas will be pitted against nine other countries from different continents.
To sum it up, the Philippines needs to take care of business on Sunday night to go through to that historic World Cup feat.
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