THE Philippine women’s national football team (PWNT) will be having a very busy year, targetting two big events on the Southeast Asian calendar.
The first is the defense of the ASEAN Women’s Championship and then later, a bid to land in the podium or, if lucky and good, win the Southeast Asian Games gold medal.
Head coach Mark Torcaso said the ASEAN Football Federation-ran competition is the main goal of the Filipinas, who won the championshipin 2022. Sarina Bolden scored the most goals in a title run capped by a 3-0 thrashing of Thailand in the final.
The date of this year’s AFF event has not been announced.
READ Maz Pacheco will soon be eligible to play for Filipinas, says PFF
“We are focusing on winning the AFF,” Torcaso said. “That’s our focus.”
Torcaso said the PFF leadership is also bent on doing well in the SEA Games after the FIlipinas failed to make it to the medal round of the 2023 edition in Cambodia, just after history by qualifying for the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
“We know that we want to win the SEA Games as well. There are two competitions that we can be very, very good in, like our men’s did recently. So we are very focused on being successful in those two tournaments.”
Torcaso said the federation plans to conduct talent identification camps this year to widen the pool in preparation for any eventuality like the two Southeast Asian tournaments possibly not falling in the FIFA international window.
“We need to have a nice, big pool of players to be able to play all these competitions and be successful,” said the Australian coach.
“It is important to have a big pool because if some of our most talented players are playing in the clubs in Europe and overseas, we want to have back-ups and we want to have good enough players being ready.
"I know we will do a good job if we do an ID camp and we’ll be able to secure a few more players,” said Torcaso.
Get more of the latest sports news & updates on SPIN.ph
NOTICE ON UNAUTHORIZED AND UNLAWFUL USE, PUBLICATION, AND/OR DISSEMINATION OF SPIN.PH CONTENT: Please be notified that any unauthorized and unlawful use, publication, and/or dissemination of Spin.ph’s content and/or materials is a direct violation of its legal and exclusive rights to the same, and shall be subject to appropriate legal action/s.
