What we can learn from the 2013 Philippine Peace Cup

It was a Jekyll-and-Hyde kind of performance by the Azkals in the 2013 Philippine Peace Cup, as they lost to Chinese Taipei, 2-1, and went down to Pakistan 1-0 in the opening 15 minutes. But three goals later, the Philippines defended their Peace Cup title on goal difference, retaining their title 100 years after winning their very first trophy.

Here's what we can learn from the Azkals in the Peace Cup:

#1 When the Azkals play together, they play really well

The link-up play against Pakistan was at times brilliant. It was typically Stephan Schrock at the heart of it, starting in an attacking midfield role and assisting Patrick Reichelt for the equalizer against Pakistan. Shrock later scored himself, as Reichelt returned the favor by turning his man brilliantly and playing in a fantastic cross to the Bundesliga defender turned Philippine striker.

The Philippines’ strength at the moment is in the middle with a stacked midfield offering a lot of options. Schrock, Paul Mulders, Jerry Lucena, Mark Hartmann, Chris Greatwich and Marwin Angeles all offered different defensive and attacking options.

Even without a target man up front, the midfield play was encouraging, as the Azkals began to moved the ball around with short, sharp passing. Schrock was at the heart of it, playing almost everywhere on the pitch.

The Philippines has a lot of individual talent, but in the Pakistan game, we saw a glimpse of what could be if the teamwork is there. The Azkals can stop with long balls forever now, and start playing some football.



#2 The Philippines needs a good target man

The Philippines had 16 shots against Chinese Taipei, more than three times their opponents', but only scored once. The lack of a clinical finisher in the Azkals' line-up was apparent, with Phil Younghusband playing just two minutes, while Javier Patiño is also injured and hasn’t been released for national team duty since the Challenge Cup Qualifiers. The Philippines will need one of them fit and sharp, to offer more of a goal-scoring threat against bigger teams.

That’s not to dampen the Schrock-Reichelt combination, which did work well against Pakistan. Schrock praised Azkals coach Michael Weiss after the game saying, “We tried it yesterday in the last session before the game and it worked well. The coach did well.” But against better teams, Pakistan is 170th in the world, that tactic probably won’t work.

While Shcrock is naturally a defender, he's playing further forward at this level because he’s in one of the beat leagues in the world. Schrock may be the best player suiting up for a Southeast Asian country at the moment, but he’s not a goalscorer. He's a creator at this level, and he’ll need someone in the box for him to finish the chances he creates. The reason Schrock had to wait at the byline to pull the ball back for the equalizer, for example, was precisely because there was no finisher in the box for so long.

With Phil Younghusband injured, Coach Weiss said after the game that he was “forced to improvise a little bit and make the best of the situation,” which he did, turning around the result of their first game. However he could have chosen more than two strikers, one of whom was already injured, as it was the squad selection that forced the improvisation. No one made him select so few attacking options.

#3 The Philippines needs to improve for the Challenge Cup

For the nine matches after the 2012 Peace Cup until the 8-0 drubbing of Cambodia in March 2013, the Philippines hadn’t scored a goal in the first half. It seems a tradition for the Philippines to start slowly and pick things up at the end. It certainly makes things more dramatic, as overturning a 1-0 scoreline is certainly more entertaining than easily beating Pakistan 3-0 before letting in a consolation goal, but in the long run it will do the team no favors.  

Part of that may be down to the fitness of the players. After the game Weiss was cautious about the win, saying, “With few exceptions most of the team can get much better to get their full technical potential when they’re fully fit... The gap between the players abroad who make a living out of it and the local boys is too big.”

Manager Dan Palami also noted the team needed to improve a lot for the Challenge Cup, saying, “All things are for the Challenge Cup and part of the Challenge Cup preparations….With the way we played right now it’s not enough for us to be champions of the Challenge Cup and these friendlies will help us prepare.”

Summing up the performance and the need to improve, he concluded, “We were lucky tonight and we’ll take the win of course, but we will prepare.”

And Palami is right. The team played well at times, the midfield began to gel and played some excellent football when they got going, but in defense and in attack, the options were limited. And if the team doesn’t start quickly it will be too far behind to catch up.



The Philippines won the Peace Cup and that’s a great thing but there’s a long way to go before the Philippines can win the Challenge Cup. The caliber of teams is another couple of levels higher than Chinese-Taipei or Pakistan, the former finishing bottom of their Challenge Cup qualification group, while Pakistan was third only beating lowly Macau. The Azkals rebounded from an opening loss and going a goal down in the second game, which shows heart and spirit, but the fact that they had to rebound at all shows weaknesses that need to be improved on if the team wants to qualify for the Asian Cup.

The Azkals will next face the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi on November 9, before flying to Chennai to play against 2006 Challenge Cup winners India. If the Philippines truly wants to be the best in the region, those are the kind of opponents they'll have to start beating now. - AMD< GMA News