U23, Senior squads start training camp

WHILE the rest of the country is in the middle of a long weekend, members of the country’s 23-Under and senior football teams will be back on the field training for their upcoming tournaments.


Coach Michael Weiss, who is in Cebu for a brief vacation, will return to Manila today to supervise both training. The senior team will be joining the Long Teng Cup in Taiwan, while the Under-23 team will try to end the country’s medal drought in the Southeast Asian Games in November in Jakarta.


The senior team will also have a training camp in Bacolod on Sept. 8 to 15 and will have a friendly against a Korean team.


As for the Long Teng Cup, Weiss said he still has no full lineup yet as the European-based players all have club commitments.


However, he is planning to field a mixed team of 23-Under and senior players to be led by team captain Alexander Borromeo, Anton del Rosario, Phil and James Younghusband.


“It’s difficult to say what our chances are against other teams but we will see at the preparations. We can win or end up second,” said Weiss.


The other teams in the tournament are host Chinese Taipei, Macau, and the Hong Kong Under 23 team.


As for the SEAG-bound team, Weis said they are arranging a training camp in October in Japan or in the Middle East.


Weiss also said the young team still has a long way to go as he observed the squad still lacks cohesion because they have not played together as a team and other players are still outside the country.


Weiss will be fielding Roland Mueller, first choice goal keeper from Germany in the under-23 team, together with initial members Jason De Jong, Simon Greatwich, Manny Ott, Phil Hinrichsen and locals David Basa, Yannick Tuason and reserve goal keeper Paolo Pascual.


Weis also said he will be observing players from Iloilo and NCR who could be part of the national team.


“Given the chance to choose between and foreign and local, I will go for the local but right now, they are not yet as good,” said Weiss.


Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on August 28, 2011.