Phl booters to test HK mettle

In a bid to prepare for the ASEAN Mitsubishi Electric Cup, the national men’s football team will be facing Hong Kong in a friendly match on Thursday at the Hong Kong Stadium.

Kickoff is set at 7 p.m. with the Nationals looking for a strong performance as they gear up for the prestigious regional tourney on 8 December.

After facing world No. 158 Hong Kong, the Filipinos are supposed to face Sri Lanka on 19 November at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium but the Philippine Football Federation decided to call it off.

“We were recently informed that because of complications securing the necessary funds from their parliament, that the Sri Lankan football team would no longer be able to travel to the Philippines to play on the 19th,” PFF national team manager Freddy Gonzalez said.

“It’s a disappointing development as we really wanted to be able to play in front of the home crowd before the Mitsubishi Electric Cup kicks off next month. I’m sorry to everyone that was looking forward to the game.”

“We tried our best to explore alternatives, but in the end, the time constraints made it difficult to find a suitable replacement to step in on short notice. The squad will still travel to Manila as originally scheduled. The team will use the time to instead continue working on our style of play on our home turf.”

Gonzalez said they will have an open training, instead.

“For those who’d still like to see and interact with the team, we will have an open training session on Sunday, 17 November at the Rizal Memorial Stadium. We will announce the specific time soon,” he added.

National team head coach Albert Capellas said they need to be at their best in their friendly match to simulate the level of play in the 10-nation Mitsubishi Cup, where powerhouse teams like Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam will be seeing action.

“For me, the most important thing is to have two friendly games in this window to continue our preparation,” Capellas said.

“I can only promise that we will do our best in the next game.”

Tipped to power the Filipinos, who are at No. 145 in the latest International Football Federation ranking, are Gerrit Holtmann, Santi Rublico, brothers Jefferson and Paul Tabinas and Patrick Deyto.