THE national men’s football team, or the Azkals, left for Baguio City on Sunday to prepare for their upcoming Asian Football Confederation Challenge Cup away match with Mongolia on March 15. In an interview with national coach Hans Michael Weiss in Bacolod City, the German said the cold weather conditions of the City of Pines is part of the strategy to acclimatize the team to the cold weather conditions of Ulan Bataar.
The Philippines could be missing the services of starting ’keeper Neil Etheridge and defender Rob Gier for the Mongolia leg.
Etheridge’s English Premier League team, Fulham, is currently in 12th place of the 20-team league with a 6-win, 13-draw, 8-loss record.
Gier, on the other hand, has his construction business that needs looking after. Weiss will promote two players from the 30-man national pool to replace the two Filipino-Britons.
The training camp of the Azkals up north is sponsored by the Baguio Football Association and the Baguio Country Club. The team will train there until February 26 before they fly to Japan for further training under the auspices of the Japan Football Association.
The Filipinos will be staying at the J-Village, the national training facility in Fukushima. The J-Village is where the Blue Samurai, as Japan’s national team is known, trained for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and their campaign in the last Asian Cup in which they won, 1-0, over Australia.
The Azkals fly to Mongolia on March 13.
Rick Olivares, Business Mirror
