The Philippines men's national football team, popularly known as the Azkals, notched a second win in their two-week training camp in Germany. Saturday's early morning test match ended 4-1 against the SC Bonner Under-19 team.
Scoring one goal each for the Azkals were Ian Araneta, Phil Younghusband, Chieffy Caligdong, and Stephan Shrock. "Great game today," Caligdong said in a tweet to fans.
Elated, team manager Dan Palami thanked (through Twitter) the Filipino community in Germany "for the overwhelming support shown when they came in droves to cheer for the Azkals! Salamat po!"
Tonight, the Azkals have some down time. They split into three teams for a competition on who sings best the Lupang Hinirang, the Philippine national anthem. For incentive, Palami put up a prize pot of 1,500 euros.
For their third test match, the Azkals will face Ingolstadt I, a Bundesliga 2nd division team, in Gerolfingen, Bavaria in southern Germany Monday evening (Manila time.)
The last test match before heading off to Sri Lanka will be on June 24 against 2010-11 regional champions, Darmstadt 98, a 3rd division squad at the Bollenfalltor stadium in the Hesse region’s Darmstadt City.
Football superpower
Germany is regarded as one of football's superpowers in the world. Its men's national football team is fourth in the current FIFA rankings while the Azkals are at 165th.
Philippine Football Federation (PFF) General Secretary Ramon 'Chito' Manuel said at the First Philippine Football Conference that it will take many years for the Philippines to reach the World Cup finals. "That global powers like Germany and regional powers like Japan and Malaysia are helping the PFF is good for Philippine football," Manuel said.
Famed German coach Erich Rutemoller is the PFF advisor for the South East Asian Games. Rutemoller was assistant coach of Germany's national team from 1994 to 2004. On its website, Bonner SC acknowledged Rutemoller as the new member of their board of directors who helped arrange the test match with the Azkals.
Rutemoller has been helping Azkals coach Michael Weiss in developing the under-23 squad the PFF will send to the SEA Games in Palembang, Indonesia in November.
Azkals assistant coach Edwin Cabalida explained to GMA News Online via Facebook chat that the team German team Bonner SC, the Azkals just defeated, though young, are no pushovers because they play in Division I of the Junior Bundesliga and a "farm team" from which the players for the national league or Bundesliga are chosen.
Cabalida said he expects the third match to be tougher for the Azkals because FC Ingolstadt is a Division II squad in the Bundesliga. — LBG, JVP, GMA News
0 Comments
