The history-making Philippine nationwide girls’s soccer crew pulled off an announcement 4-0 victory in opposition to Hong Kong to cap off an immaculate run within the AFC Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament, which the Filipinas ended with an unblemished file of 3-0 win-loss card.
And head coach Alen Stajcic believes this massive victory is proof of the expansion and enchancment the crew has had over time.
“I thought we played well, we controlled the game well. [This is] probably our best control we’ve had this week here against a good opposition, an opposition 15 months ago we beat only 2-1 in the last minute,” Stajcic stated on Tuesday night time.
“It just shows how much we’ve improved.”
Sarina Bolden was on the forefront of the Filipinas’ offense in opposition to Hong Kong with the Filipinas ace midfielder scoring the primary two objectives to place the Philippines up even earlier than the midway mark.
With Bolden main the way in which, the nation will be capable to get an enormous enhance heading to its subsequent event, which is the thirty second Southeast Asian Games this May in Cambodia the place they may go up in opposition to Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
But even with their enchancment, Stajcic stated the expansion would not cease there, particularly as solely two groups from Asia will qualify to the Paris Olympics subsequent 12 months.
“A large part of the game was pretty good, but our finishing has to be better if we want to compete with the big nations in Asia,” the Australian mentor stated.
“We’ve improved a lot but there’s still a lot of hard work to do.”
Stajcic additionally shared why the win in opposition to Hong Kong was additional particular for him, noting that it marked his a centesimal match since changing into a coach within the sport.
“My first match as a head coach was an interim match against Hong Kong in 2007 and the 100th is against Hong Kong again in an Olympic Games qualifier again which is really remarkable,” he shared.
“I’m really pleased that we won, I’m really pleased that we got through, I’m really pleased that we performed well as a group and as I said, we can do a little bit better with execution in the penalty box.”
—Bea Micaller/JMB, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
