Villaflor: Azkals face the War Elephants

THE near-disaster against Timor-Leste in last Saturday’s Suzuki Cup match has turned many an Azkal fan into a nervous wreck.

The takeaway consensus from the unexpected 3-2 result is that Thailand definitely will destroy the Philippines on Thursday night at the Panaad Stadium in Bacolod, unless divine intervention by way of bad weather renders the football pitch unplayable.

Still, a match postponement supposedly would just mean prolonging the agony, as the doomsayers cannot wait for their prophecy to become real.

Apparently, these antsy pundits have reduced competitive football into a simple equation: Thailand blanked Timor 7-0, but the Philippines barely won 3-2 against the Southeast Asian minnows; therefore, based on these insufferably complex numbers, the War Elephants will destroy the Azkals.

The outcome is written in stone, an Azkals defeat, inevitable. Never mind that football, at all levels, has a history of being unpredictable. Never mind that the Azkals will be playing on home soil with a solid crowd behind them. Never mind that this Azkals team is a vastly improved version from those of previous tournaments. Never mind that football is a chess match, and never mind that new head coach Sven-Goran Eriksson has the football nous to deploy crucial tactical adjustments that actually work.

But seriously, the Azkals shouldn’t be measured based on the lack of concentration the team suffered in a match the players were too complacent to win. When they step in the field on Thursday to face Thailand, you can bet that the Azkals will carry a far more composed but forbidding mindset, one that offers no room for embarrassing mistakes, one that is determined to win against the best football team in the region.

Of course it’s another question whether the Azkals can actually defeat Thailand, as the War Elephants aren’t defending, five-time champions for nothing.

A draw on Thursday, however, would be a decent result for the hosts, although an unprecedented win against the Thais would ease the pressure as they head for the Indonesian capital of Jakarta for their last match in Group B this Sunday.

The way it looks in the Group of Death, Indonesia and Timor, both having played three matches each, seem out of the running for a semifinals berth, unless Thailand loses its next two matches--against the Philippines, then at home against Singapore.

But that scenario is unlikely, leaving Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore as the only teams with real chances of advancing to the knockout rounds.

From the past two matches, we have seen a Philippine team that has more creativity up front, the kind of diversity of movement and plays that could leave the Thais guessing for the whole 90 minutes. To convert such creativity into goals will be the real challenge, though, the same challenge that has hounded the team in past tournaments.

And yet Thailand’s defense can be breached, as what Indonesia exposed in its losing 4-2 campaign against the hosts last Saturday. Further, all four goals that Thailand scored stemmed from incredibly sloppy defense and goalkeeping.

That said, if the defensively solid Azkals that shut out Singapore turns out on Thursday, Thailand might be in for a surprise. If the weather permits, of course.

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