The Philippine national women’s football team won’t be content taking part in the ASEAN Women’s Championship and the 33rd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Thailand this year.
More than anything else, the squad wants to win both events.
Filipinas head coach Mark Torcaso said he wants to have a big pool of players that will ensure they will have the best team assembled for the two major tournaments of 2025.
Torcaso is currently serving as an assistant coach to Rafa Merino in the AFC Futsal Women’s Asian Cup as the national women’s team is competing against Uzbekistan at press time.
“We are focusing on winning the AFF (championship). That’s our big focus. We know that we want to win the SEA Games as well,” Torcaso said.
“Those are two competitions. We know that we can be very, very good at it like our men’s team did recently. So we are very focused on being successful in those two competitions.”
The Philippines will be gunning for back-to-back ASEAN titles this year after winning it all in 2022.
The Filipinas are also eyeing to at least get back to the podium after failing to reach the semifinal in the 2023 SEA Games in Cambodia.
“It’s important to have a big pool of players, because if some of our most talented players are playing in the clubs in Europe and overseas, we want to have backups, and we want to have good enough players being ready,” Torcaso said.
“So I know that we will do a good job if we do an (identification) camp, and we’ll be able to secure a few more players. But again, as I said, it’s about increasing the pool.”
“I know we will do a good job if we do an ID camp and we’ll be able to secure a few more players.”
For now, Torcaso said they are focused on the ongoing Futsal Women’s Asian Cup.
“At the moment, we are just focused on (the competition) in Uzbekistan. We don’t know when the AFF Championship is right now in football so we’ll worry about that when the schedule is out but for now, we just want the girls to enjoy the next 10 days away over there,” Torcaso said.