PHL futsal teams off to SEA Games to revive football medal hopes

Football medal hopes spring anew and this time, from the national men's and women's futsal teams, who head off Monday to Indonesia for the 26th South East Asian Games.

Both teams' first matches will be on November 18 with the ladies going up against Myanmar and the gents pit versus Indonesia.

"They will play with their hearts for the country," Esmaeil Sedigh, head coach of the men's national futsal team, told GMA News Online during the Luzon Finals of the ongoing Winners' Cup of the Pilipinas Futsal Cup (PFCWC).

Futsal is indoor football.

The men's team is in Group A with Indonesia and Vietnam while the women's team will be in a round robin format with Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand.

Sedigh, who is also the chairman of the Philippine Futsal Committee of the Philippine Football Federation (PFF), said the national futsal teams have been practicing over the last six months with the help of the PFF and Philippine Sports Commission (PSC).

PFF president Mariano “Nonong" Araneta said at the sidelines of the PFCWC that the team "are in shape and skillful and have been practicing a long time already."

Sedigh said the teams practiced three times a week on evenings of Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.

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