THE good news: the Philippines Women’s National Football Team showed promise in its 3-0 loss to China last Monday night on Matchday 2 of the AFC Asian Women’s Cup. The bad news? Thailand just destroyed hosts Jordan 6-1 in the other match of Group A. China now leads the group, followed by Thailand, then the Philippines, with the hosts as cellar dwellers.
China’s win means it will advance to the knockout stage of the Asian Women’s Cup, apart from earning a slot in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The tussle between the Philippines and Thailand this Friday at 1 a.m. will determine who joins China in the knockout stage, as well as book a trip outright to the Women’s World Cup in France.
With Thailand’s superior goal difference, a draw with the Philippines will see them through. So, the Malditas have no other recourse but to win against Thailand.
Now check out the FIFA rankings: China is 17th in the world, Thailand is 30th, Jordan is 51st, while the Philippines is 72nd. The figures suggest how strong the teams are relative to each other, although rankings alone don’t determine a team’s chances in tournaments of this scale.
The Malditas’s 2-1 win over Jordan is considered an upset but not unthinkable. Our team’s loss to China was expected, but the 3-0 scoreline revealed more positives, not to mention that Thailand lost by a slightly bigger margin (4-0) to the Asian powerhouse on Matchday 1.
Watching the second half of the Philippines vs. China match via livestream, I felt that the Malditas seemed as if they were there merely to survive the Chinese onslaught. It was only by the 70th minute that the Malditas, trailing by three goals, decided to play football, winning duels, creating space, and completing pass combinations. The Malditas’s gradual but tenacious forays into danger zones forced China to backpedal, with Alexa Diaz’s breakaway on the left flank drawing a bad tackle from Wu Haiyan, who was rightfully sent off with her second yellow card on the 82nd minute.
From then on, the Philippines stepped on the gas. In the dying minutes of the game, Jesse Shugg, Sarina Bolden, and Sara Castañeda each managed attempts in dangerous areas one after the other, making the Chinese defense sweat buckets.
The Malditas lost but their plucky performance during that 25-minute spell against eight-time champions China is cause for optimism, not just for the upcoming match against Thailand, but for the near future.
Consider this: the average age of the Malditas starting 11 is only 22 years old. That, fellow football fans, is a really young team. With the way they performed against a much higher-ranked veteran Chinese squad (average age: 26), one can imagine what an older, much experienced Malditas would be in the 2022 AFC Asian Women’s Cup.
That’s the good news. The bad news is the more pressing concern for the Malditas is how to overcome a Thai team that went beastmode against the hosts. A draw this Friday won’t be enough, so it’s a win over Thailand or goodbye Asian Cup, goodbye World Cup 2019, and back to the drawing board.
For any chance to win, the Malditas team that must show up against Thailand is the one that nearly cracked the impenetrable defensive wall of China last Monday.