23 in the PFF list

The Philippine Football Federation (PFF) has released the 23man roster for the Philippine Men’s National Team that is seeing action against Tajikistan in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup UAE 2019 Qualifiers on June 13 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

The Azkals will be composed of a majority of players that are playing locally in the Philippines Football League.

Players from Global Cebu FC and Ceres Negros FC, which are both competing in the AFC Cup, comprise mostly of the roster with six each.

Amani Aguinaldo, Misagh Bahadoran, Patrick Deyto, Hikaru Minegishi, Nicholas O’Donnel and Dennis Villanueva are the players from Global Cebu FC, while Jeffrey Christiaens, Kevin Ingreso, Jim Munoz, Manny Ott, Iain Ramsay and Luke Woodland the players from Ceres Negros FC.

Azkals mainstays Phil and James Younghusband along with Nathanael Villanueva were the players called from FC Meralco Manila, while Kenshiro Daniels and Antonio Ugarte also joined the team from Kaya FC Makati.

The other players that were chosen were Dominic del Rosario of Ilocos United FC, Camelo Tacusalme of JPV Marikina FC, Fitch Arboleda of Stallion Laguna FC, Mike Ott of Angthon United, Javier Patiño of Chinese club Henan Jianye and Daisuke Sato of Romanian club CSM Politehnica Ia?i.

The Azkals will have a friendly game against China on June 7 at the Guangzhou Tianhe Sports Centre Stadium in Guangzhou, China.

The Philippines currently tops Group F with three points and is just slightly ahead of Yemen on goal difference.

The Philippines beat Nepal, 4-1, last March 28 at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium in Manila. /