Luck of draw eludes Philippines anew
...even in local matches, local associations don’t bother with rankings. I wonder if Coca Cola didn’t bother sponsoring the Fifa rankings, would Fifa still continue to upgrade it every month?
Whoever the Philippine Football Federation send out to attend the draws for the senior team’s international matches should be changed. Or barring that, he should be made to do a vodoo dance--or attend a Visita Iglesia—depending on one’s religious inclination to remove the bad luck the country has been getting lately in terms of draw.
After the Group of Death in the Suzuki Cup, when we got picked alongside Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore, now comes the Asian Cup third round draw, where we are grouped together with Tajikistan, Yemen and Nepal.
Based on the Fifa rankings, the Philippines, at No. 14 in Asia and No. 122 worldwide, is ahead of Tajikistan, (21, 132), Yemen (27, 149) and Nepal (39, 175). But, by now even the fans who picked up the game just last year know that rankings totally mean crap when it comes to the international game. Heck, even in local matches, local associations don’t bother with rankings. I wonder if Coca Cola didn’t bother sponsoring the Fifa rankings, would Fifa still continue to upgrade it every month? But I digress.
Exhibit A of crappy rankings is Indonesia, ranked 38th in Asia and 173rd in the world as of yesterday and of course, who couldn’t forget what Indonesia did to us at home? If not for Phil Younghusband’s wonderful free kick late in the match, we would have been out two matches into the Suzuki Cup we hosted.
So, let’s go through the past. Against Tajikistan, we lost 2-1 in the semis of the Challenge Cup, a match that saw defender Carli de Murga making a shutout in 10 minutes in his lone stint at goal when Neil Etheridge got red-carded.
Against Yemen, yep we beat them in Doha, 2-0, a match that had to be played in neutral soil because of turmoil in their country but lost, 1-0, when we hosted them.
It’s only against Nepal that we’ve had recent success, scoring 10 goals in three shut-out wins since 2011. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nepal can spring a suprise or two because, well, considering our inglorious exit in the Suzuki Cup, how’s the morale of our Philippine team?
Last time the team was mentioned in the papers or in the opinion pieces of writers like Ryan Fenix, the tenure of coach Thomas Dooley was questioned too.
If the football gods looked kindly on us, the perfect draw should have seen the Philippine alongside Hong Kong, Myanmar and Guam, but hey perfect only exists in the movies, so we deal with what we got.
Thankfully, the first game will be against Nepal at home on March 28 and by god if coach Dooley can’t win with the team he got, we should replace him, give the new coach enough time before next match on Sept. 5 against Yemen.