Filipinas lose to Wales in opener

THE Philippine women’s national football team got off to a losing start in Pinatar Cup, yielding a 0-1 decision to Wales in Spain early Thursday morning (Manila time).

Ranked 53rd in the world, the Filipinas actually gave the world No. 32 a competitive first half.

The Philippines managed to keep Wales in check early in the match but Dominique Randle got called for a foul, resulting in a Kayleigh Green penalty kick conversion in the added time of the first half.

The Filipinas tried to mount a comeback in the second half as Katrina Guillou unleashed a good shot on goal in the 48th minute, but Wales goalkeeper Safia Middleton-Patel came through with the save.

Despite the loss, Philippines head coach Alen Stajcic is pleased with the effort of his World Cup-bound team.

“We don’t like losing and we’ve spoken about that before but I’m really pleased with what we did tonight. There are usual issues of not being able to keep the ball better, which is something we have to work on,” said the Australian tactician.

“Considering that we’re in preseason and the opposition right in the middle of their season, the jetlag, we’ve had delayed flights, we’ve had players ill and we’ve had players coming in really late to camp. That was an amazing effort — probably one of our best in terms of effort. We went up against players in the super league and some of the big clubs as well so it was a really good effort and the team showed a lot of discipline defensively.”

The Philippines will next face world No. 25 Scotland on Saturday, February 18.