The women’s national football team known as the Malditas will train the United States with its eye on a possible stint in the Myanmar Southeast Asian Games in December.
National women’s team coach Ernie Nierras will be in the US next month before heading to Myanmar in September for the AFF Women’s Championship.
In the group stage of the AFF tourney, the Malditas are bracketed with Laos, Indonesia and Asian powerhouse Japan.
The schedule comes even as their status, along with the men’s U-23 and futsal teams for Myanmar is still in limbo.
The Philippine Olympic Committee said it must first be convinced that the football teams can win a medal before giving the go signal on the SEA Games trip.
“We just have to keep doing what we have to do to convince (the POC) that we deserve to play in the SEA Games,” Nierras said.
The last time the Malditas saw action in the SEAG was during the 2007 Nakhon Ratchasima tilt where they failed to advance past the group stage.
The Malditas have improved substantially. They had a solid showing in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers where they barely missed a spot in the main tournament after placing second to Thailand in Group B.
The Malditas also made a significant rise in the FIFA rankings last June when they gained seven places and are now ranked No. 76 in the world.
“For whatever reason we don’t get to play in the SEA Games, we will stay with our earlier plans which include the staging of a quadrangular tournament here,” said Nierras. –
Jonas Terrado
Manila Bulletin
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