MANILA (7 Oct 2014) – Philippines national coach Thomas Dooley is aiming for the AFF Suzuki Cup in the midst of their friendly against Papua New Guinea next week.
Following the cancellation of their friendly against Malaysia, the Philippines national side has lined up a match against Papua New Guinea instead which will be played at the Rizal Memorial Stadium on 12 Oct.
Along the same breath and given the importance of the tie as they prepare for the final rounds of the AFF Suzuki Cup next month, Dooley said that winning the title will be the team’s target this year.
“Realistic goal is winning the Suzuki Cup. I mean, if you look at everything, we are number one in Southeast Asia that means on the paper that we are the best team but not necessarily the best team in talk so you have to show them in the field so realistically we can win, but are we gonna win? I don’t know. We will see,” quipped Dooley.
“I am happy how the team developed with the way we play. The reason why we lost (the Peace Cup) was maybe because the players were a little bit too tired. I think we have to play a little smarter to score wins and really finish our chances then we’ll be okay. So that’s what we are working on. We are working on being fit.”
Among the 32 players called for training are Patrick Deyto, Jeffrey Christiaens, Anton Del Rosario, Daisuke Sato, Rob Gier, Jason De Jong, Christopher Greatwich, Simon Greatwich, Mark Hartman, Manuel Ott, Paul Mulders, Jose Elmer Porteria, Misagh Bahadoran, Carli De Murga, Emilio Caligdong, Patrick Reichelt, James Younghusband and Phil Younghusband.
