Philippine Azkals to face China in June friendly

GEARED towards fine-tuning its play in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers, the Philippine men’s national football team will face China in a friendly next month, the country’s football federation announced.

Set for June 7, the Philippine Azkals will travel to Guangzhou, China, before heading to their second AFC Asian Cup qualifiers game against Tajikistan scheduled a week later on June 13.

The international friendly between the two nations marks the first time since 2000 that they will face each other.

The last time they met, China lorded it over the Philippines, 8-0.

“We will have an international friendly between China PR and Philippines on 7 June,” said Philippine Football Federation (PFF) General- Secretary Edwin Gastanes in a statement announcing the friendly.

“We will now talk to the PFL clubs to explore the possibility of release of players for national team duties earlier than 5 June 2017,” he added, referring to the Philippines Football League (PFL), the newly formed national league, where most of the Azkals are playing.

As of this writing, the PFF is still finalizing the final list of players who will be suiting up for national team duties.

In the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers, the Azkals, currently ranked at 127th in the world, are bracketed in Group F along with Tajikistan, Yemen and Nepal.

They won their first match against Nepal, 4-1, on home soil in March with skipper Phil Younghusband scoring a brace and Iain Ramsay and Javier Patino having a goal each.

The Philippines is angling to end up at least in the top two of its group to advance to the next round of the quadrennial international men’s football championship of Asia in 2019 to be held in Jordan. Meanwhile, in the PFL, Global Cebu FC defeated Kaya FCMakati, 3-1, in midweek action on Wednesday night.

Dennis Villanueva ( 4’) and Sekou Sylla ( 16’ and 89’) accounted for the goals of Global, which now improved to 2-1-0 and seven points.

With the loss, Kaya, for its part, dropped to 1-1-1 and four points.

“Both teams played well throughout the 90 minutes, but for us, we took advantage of the two goals in the first half,” said Global Cebu head coach Marjo Allado.