WITH the Rizal Memorial Stadium undergoing renovations with its playing surface, the Philippine men’s football team will play its first home game of the AFC Asian Cup 2027 Qualifiers at the New Clark City Stadium in Capas, Tarlac.
The squad made the official announcement on Thursday.
It will be the first time that the national football team will play at New Clark City, but it had already hosted two matches of the Philippines Football League in 2022.
READ: PFF has no plans of bringing in naturalized players after ASEAN Cup
The PMNT will play in the stadium that was built for the country’s hosting of the 2019 Southeast Asian Games as the Rizal Memorial Stadium is unavailable due to the installation of a new artificial turf to start the year.
Travel arrangements to make the match accessible to fans are expected to be made since the venue is nearly 110 kilometers north of Manila. Free upper box tickets will be given away to fans, according to the squad, in a move to encourage people to attend the match.
The team begins its campaign to qualify in the AFC Asian Cup 2027 after its successful campaign in the ASEAN Mitsubishi Electric Cup where the Philippines qualified in the semifinals for the first time since 2018.
With the Asian Cup part of the FIFA international window, PMNT is expected to be beefed up with overseas-based players that could include Gerrit Holtmann, who plays in Germany with Darmstadt 98.
The Philippines will also go up against Tajikistan and Timor-Leste in the qualifiers, now on its third and final round where the top teams in each of the six groups qualifies in the Asian Cup.
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