Azkals youngblood out to show more

 

By 

Ian Suyu

Philippine Azkals youngster Jefferson Tabinas is eyeing to unleash more of his skills as the national squad continues its hunt for Asian Cup qualification in the FIFA World Cup and Asian Cup joint qualifiers in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Deemed as the most impressive player on Azkals’ return to international action against China last Tuesday, the 22-year old center back is raring to go all out with only two games left for the team in the prestigious qualifiers.

“Always. I hope that I can play better,” Tabinas said after their 0-2 performance against China.

“We had a lot of accidents, but everyone played good and I’m proud of them.”

Playing for Mito HollyHock in the J2 League, the Shinjuku-born talent was one of the nine new faces called up for national duty, alongside fellow Azkals youngsters Jarvey Gayoso, Mark Winhoffer, Mar Diano and Michael Kempter.

And despite his newcomer status, the Filipino-Japanese booter quickly earned praises from head coach Scott Cooper after showing a defensive masterclass that prevented China from making clear chances inside the box.

“I think we can take pride in that, Jeff Tabinas made a very good Azkals debut,” Cooper said.

In fact, Tabinas himself said that he was never intimidated in facing a stronger opposition led by Chinese star We Lei of Espanyol and naturalized forward Elkeson of Guangzhou Evergrande.

“I don’t know if it’s okay to say this but it was easy for me because I had in my mind a more special striker but there was nothing like that.”

“It was easy for me to play with them.”

But regardless of his impressive showing, the young defender is not letting his guard down as the Nationals still have an ax to grind when they face Guam on 11 June and the Maldives on 15 June.

“I think [of] this as the lowest, so that I can play more. When I have more matches then I can play better than today.,” Tabinas added.

“I can focus on the game and have a lot of communication with my teammates. That’s my style so I have to keep it always.”

https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2021/06/10/azkals-youngblood-out-to-show-more/