MANILA, Philippines – The Palestinian Fighters held the Philippines Azkals to a goalless draw in their Challenge Cup group stage match in Yangon, Myanmar on Wednesday.
The Azkals struggled hard to get past the taller Palestinians, who dominated the first half of the game.
Filipino-Spanish player Angel Aldeguer Guirado, who took the place of injured striker Phil Younghusband, had the best scoring attempt for the Azkals in the 62nd minute, with his header saved by the Palestinian goalkeeper.
Chieffy Caligdong and Rob Gier also had near successes at the Palestinian goal.
The Fighters deployed a lone striker, 5-man midfield formation to block the Azkals' passing lanes.
The Palestinians' counter-attacks also caused problems for the Filipinos.
Their shots hit the crossbar several times, almost catching Azkals goalkeeper Neil Etheridge asleep.
It was a rough game for both squads, prompting Azkals coach Hans Michael Weiss to substitute 3 of his players near the end of the match.
Caligdong, who had a man-of-the match performance, limped out of the field in the 88th minutes.
The Azkals now have 2 points on 2 straight draws in the single-round qualifying series. The Filipinos earlier settled for a 1-1 draw against host nation Myanmar.
The Azkals will now have to secure a crucial win against Bangladesh on Friday to raise their total points to 5.
Palestine currently leads the group with 4 points on 1 win and 1 draw.
Myanmar currently has 1 point through the draw with the Azkals.
Bangladesh has no points yet. Myanmar and Bangladesh will also play on Wednesday.
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Palestine's win over B'desh 2 days ago was their first international (senior team) win in 5 years.. and Palestine didn't even bring some of their key players, who play for overseas clubs, in this competition..
ReplyDeleteI'm not complaining the result. Even when you're much stronger than the opponent you can't always win, not to mention a slight superiority. What i'm really disappointed with is that, according to live tweet, it seems we clearly got outperformed by them, especially first half. Jeeeez
Have we even improved seriously ? I mean, yes i know we are million miles far away from Asian powerhouses and i don't even expect Azkals to catch up with them in 10 years. But i thought, at least, we came close to ASEAN average level, enough to compete with our neighbors, but it seems like things getting more and more obvious like what we did in 2010 AFF was just plain fluke.
Bangladesh defeats Myanmar 2-0 FT
ReplyDeleteTo 2PacMan: I agree with you that we still don't come close to Top ASEAN level. I think the semi final in the Tiger Cup was just a one night sensation and a tactical master piece vs. Vietnam. I guess they won't lose a 2nd time against us. See how they crushed Myanmar back then and we even can not win vs 10 Myanmar players and were deominated by them most of the game (especially 1st half). We only can compete in Asia with the weaker teams and we even have a hard time to make wins vs. Laos (which we haven't won the last matches) or tough fights to Cambodia.....But I think that we HAVE improved, as in the past we weren't able to compete even on that level and now we at least do not lose that often and collecting draws and some victories. The future will see how we develope......it all depends if the right decisions will be made now.....and not wasting recources like in the past
ReplyDelete2PacMan, baby steps, man. The qualifiers are not over yet. Let's not expect too much. At least they made enough adjustments in the second half after being "outperformed" in the first one. Hopefully, the next game would be a better result. You can't deny that things have changed for the better but just like you said they are "million miles far away from Asian powerhouses." I think they can beat Bangladesh and make the final 8. If you look at both games, they were good and close. It's not like they were badly beaten so theyre staying competitive. It's still a good sign.
ReplyDeletei think we have improved leaps and bounds in contrast to how we are in the past. suzuki i think is part of these leaps AFC. The ups and downs are part of normal trend any striving team would go through to get to its peak. it hasnt been easy for the boys and coaching staff. -17 deg weather just last week, now humid hot myanmar. players coming and going. injuries. i gotta give it to them for keeping it tight, still. man, have they got a lot of character.
ReplyDeletewe move forward and take care of business on FRIDAY. there's some tweaking up stuff to be done by coach weiss. Im not comfortable with the way things went down out on those wings, but i offer no suggestions at this point, for there will be too many to listen to instead. im just one of the most rabbid fans.
oops... r-a-b-i-d, rabid, dummy!
ReplyDeleteAt 2PacMan...
ReplyDeleteOnce again, it's called HYPE! There's still too many people who expect too much too soon. That's just simplest shortest way to put it really.
Five weeks of team togetherness and five games without a win (2 in Japan). Sorry, Mr Weiss, fail to win the next one and you either take a hike or take an axe to some serious deadwood in the side.
ReplyDeletehype is good. we need hype! imagine if there was no hype. even little hype is very bad. we need a million dozen of gazillion hype! it's the kind of hype that would make our basketball crazy kids jump ship and turn to football!!!
ReplyDeletemr weiss: yoodle-le-hi-hoo !!!
ReplyDeleteThank you guys for replies. Firstly, i'm not trying to discourage fellow Azkal followers. Please don't get me wrong.
ReplyDeleteHowever, honestly, i started to doubt if we are actually improving. As we all know Challenge Cup is even lower-level competition than AFF Suzuki Cup. The only exceptional participant may be North Korea, but they are not serious about this competition and they don't send their best squad anyway. Overall, Challenge Cup is like the world's lowest level competition, and actually, although we haven't passed the first group stage in 3 previous events, our performance wasn't THAT bad either. Let me bring stats.
2006 Group Stage (2006)
1-1 D India
1-1 D Afghanistan
0-1 L Taiwan
2008 Qualification Group Stage (2008)
0-0 D Tajikistan
1-0 W Brunei
3-0 W Bhutan
2010 Qualification Group Stage (2009)
1-0 W Bhutan
2-3 L Maldives
0-5 L Turkmenistan
The only miserable result was 0-5 defeat by Turkmenistan 2 year ago, but this kinda was understandable because they were one of the strongest side among the entire participants and they actually ended up being runner-up in this edition behind North Korea. Other than that, we won 3 games, drew 3, and lost 2 in total. 9 goals for, 6 against. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Again, i'm not complaining about the result today. As a Anonymous above said we still have enough chance to advance to the next stage so it's fine. But i'm just pointing out the fact that we have always been competitive at least in the first group stage of Challenge Cup and therefore i think 2 draws in 2 games can never be a sign of improvement. And other than the results, the fact that we coudn't seize the initiative in both games makes me seriously doubt if we have actually improved or not. It starts to seem like nothing's actually changed.
OK Let's just forget last AFF Cup. Of course i will keep rooting for Azkals whatsoever.
At sandugo...
ReplyDeleteHype isn't all that bad, but in the national team's case, there's way too much of it. Therefore too many people expect too much too soon. It's ridiculous and it's ridiculous to the point where it's irritating.
Just block it out, man. All these exposure is good. It helps establish the interest. Specially, for the young kids to see the screaming girls, thats money. They would want to be in those players' shoes. And for the sponsors, thats also money. And what does the team need? Cha-ching! Cmon, those in the know will always be realistic. And they have to be one informing the people and not The Buzz or whatever gossip show is there. But exposure is good, it will bring in the needed cash for support. -Ace
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned on one of the comments before. It would be amazing to see the "fad" Azkals fans would still be there to support the team after all the hoopla dies down.
ReplyDeleteGreat result though, although the last time the azkals had a good run of results, was under Coach Norman Figederos watch, 2 wins, 1 draw.
When I saw the re-play of the Philippines Vs Myanmar game, I think they have improved a lot with their passing. Cohesiveness is still a little problem since some of the players have just a day or few days practice. What I saw lead me to believe we are going in the right direction even the results don't seem impressive. Myanmar was just lucky to escape with a draw. Palestine in the other hand went as high as 115 in the FIFA rankings and top 4 in the 2006 edition of the Challenge Cup, having a draw isn't bad at all. Those bandwagon fans wont like the result so far, but those real fans who knows football would appreciate the result especially after having seen the game.
ReplyDeleteAgain someone's bringing Fifa ranking here. Those who really knows football woudn't make big deal out of the ridiculous ranking thing. And even if the ranking matters, we already had draw with India (highest rank #94) and Tajikistan (highest rank #114) in previous Challenge Cups. Plus, Tajikistan was 2006 champ/2008 runner-up, and India was 2008 champion. So tell me again having draw with Palestine can be seen as a step forward for us.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't say Myanmar was lucky only because they scored the late goal. Shots on goal 12-2 in first half, 15-11 in full time. Myanmar enjoyed nearly one-sided game in first half, while we played better in second half but considering the fact that Myanmar had to fight with 10-men for last 20 minutes, a draw was more than deserving result for them.
What you gotta say "lucky to escape with a draw" must be Azkals yesterday. Clearly got outperformed by Palestinians as goal post saved us 2 times, Neil saved 1v1 situation and all.
As to whether we're improving, yes we are and in fact, the whole world's football always improves. Even Brazil or Spain keeps improving in their individual skills, team skills, tactics and all. Of course we're improving too, so are Myanmar, Palestine or any countries. I think we're improving just as much as keeping pace with our fellow 'the-weakest-league' teams. No more no less. And our recent improvement has been almost wholly by instant therapy using fil-for players, while other countries keep improving their own football infrastructures and producing talents with their own hands. What if Neil wasn't with us at AFF Cup and now in Myanmar ?
Saying "We're doing good. Out future is bright" is easy. But is that really perfect attitude of a true fan ?
irritated anonymous:
ReplyDeletei agree w you -- it irritates the crap out of me too. i know my football, i play football, i live, breath, eat, and shit ... nah, im just messing w you... im just as passionate as maybe you and a few others here about serious footballing. but like i said in one of my other comments here somewhere anout the "hype" subject, the thing about me is that i can afford to look the other way. "for the greater good", and all that goid stuff, you see what i mean? if there could be something else more irritating than what' now hype, that too can pile on top of the current one Philipine football is getting. Long term, and im talking , very long term great goodness far outweighs irritation. it's like being bunched up in a prone with your camouflage and rifle somewhere in bad guys' land and there's ants and bugs and rats and stuff all over your ass but you suck it up some because soon enough you'll like what you'd see in your crosshairs. i know, that's some freaky analogy, but you'll get the moral. anyway, relax, dude, we're gonna be just fine.