Stajcic raves about Filipinas

While the Philippine national women's team awaits its next tour of duty in preparation for the FIFA Women's World Cup, Filipinas head coach Alen Stajcic took the time out to assess the progress made by the team that has been making a lot of heads turn.

Grouped with Switzerland, Norway and co-host New Zealand, the Filipinas are on a quest to continue earning accolades one after the other.

"We progressed a long way to show that we can compete against those teams and obviously the next step in the evolution for this team is to win games and dominate the passages of play that we saw in little bits," Stajcic said.

"The hard work is there, the players are striving and doing everything they can, traveling around the world to find the best clubs to play in so we can fast-track the experience and build on what we built this year."

One major stint on the horizon for the Filipinas is an appearance during a mini-tournament in Murcia, Spain, this February.

"It's a little tournament with its own value and the matches have their own individual value but to be honest, it really is a preparation for the World Cup and if we come first, second, third or fourth, I'm not going to be waiving a cup or trophy around. It really is about preparing the team for the World Cup," Stajcic said.

The past several months, the Filipinas have been on a tour of key football locales.

After securing their spot in the World Cup in the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup last January, the Filipinas competed and trained in the United States, Costa Rica, Chile and Papua New Guinea.

The Philippines will be participating in the Pinatar Cup 2023 in Spain where the Filipinas will face No. 32 Wales, No. 25 Scotland and No. 16 Iceland. I