COACH Alen Stajcic described the Philippines' run to the 2022 AFF Women’s Championship as “miraculous.”
“It’s exhilarating. It’s miraculous what these player have done the last two weeks, let alone the last four weeks,” said Stajcic after the Philippines captured the crown with a 3-0 win over Thailand on Sunday night at the Rizal Memorial Stadium.
See Filipinas get payback vs Thais to bag historic AFF Championship crown
The title was a culmination of a grueling preparation where the Filipinas went to Turkey and Slovenia for training camp and played a series of friendlies before returning to the Philippines for the AFF tournament.
“Credit goes to every single staff and every single player. To play 10 games in 28 days across two continents in three or four long-haul flights. You just have to appreciate the hard work that is on the body.”
The Filipinas started the tournament with wins over Australia, Singapore and Malaysia before going down, 0-1, to Thailand in the group stage.
But the Philippines recovered in the semifinals, pulling off a 4-0 victory over Vietnam to arrange a rematch against Thailand in the championship.

In the end, the Philippines blanked the four-time AFF champions to delight of the 8,257 fans at the Rizal stadium.
“And playing seven games in 14 days in this temperature on a hard pitch, something I’ve never seen before,” said Stajcic.
“I can’t find words to describe how resilient and mentally tough they are. The players obviously deserve a lot of credit,” said Stajcic.
Stajcic was also happy to see Philippine football alive with the fans that showed up at the venue, the largest to have attended in the tournament.
“To see the fans come out and lift Philippine football, to bring it to life, it’s really spectacular,” said Stajcic.
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