Weiss: 'Parallel pool' in the works to beef up Azkals

A parallel pool for the Philippine national "Azkals" football team is now in the works, the team's coach said over the weekend. Michael Weiss said he is aiming to form a pool of talent to have the Philippine team at par with international level football. "We are expecting a few of our professional players to join us for the Challenge Cup next month. So the idea now is to develop a parallel line of players to further the development of Filipino football," he said in an interview with news site Gulf News. He also downplayed the Azkals' 0-3 loss to Uzbekistan in their friendly match Saturday, saying it was part of their preparations. Weiss maintained their goal is to prepare for the March 9 match against North Korea in the AFC Challenge Cup in Nepal. "(H)ence this defeat doesn't harm us as our eyes are on the March 9 match," he said. "If we wanted to, we could have played against a weaker team and won. But we chose a strong side like Uzbekistan simply because we wanted these young boys who normally don't have a chance to get the experience of playing at a very high level," he added. The Gulf News report said Weiss now has the luxury of having some of his Azkals play professionally all over Europe. Among these are Stephan Schrock (Greuther Furth); Jerry Lucena (Frankfurt); goalkeeper Neil Etheridge (Fulham) and Dennis Cagara (AGF). Weiss said they are now starting to integrate the younger players like Angel Guirado, Marwin Angeles and Juan Luis Guirado. "We are only creating options from our side so that we can dig deeper into a pool of players for the future," Weiss said. - AMD, GMA News