U22 Azkals falter in Asian Cup Qualifiers

The U22s have come back from an unsuccessful campaign in the Asian Cup Qualifiers, losing all five games in Myanmar.   The U22s’ campaign started off against the hosts on the 23rd June, though they were soundly beaten 5-1 by Myanmar U22s. Jeffrey Christiaens had actually put the Philippines in front, converting a penalty in the first five minutes.   In front of a crowd of 18,000, Myanmar were spurred on and Kyaw Zayat Win equalized in the 28th minute and scored his second in the 75th minute, after Kyaw Ko Ko scored a first half brace and Yan Aung Win scored the other goal of the second half.   It only got worse for the U22 Azkals, though, as they lost 7-0 to Malaysia next. The sides faced each other on the 25th June and the senior sides had played earlier that month and had drawn 0-0 in Malaysia, however Malaysia U22s dominated here.   Rozaimi Abdul Rahman opened the scoring on the 2nd minute, scoring four goals in total throughout the game, while Fandhi Othman, Wan Zaharulnizam Zakaria and D. Saardvindran completed the rout in front of a much smaller crowd of 100.   Rozaimi is by far the leading goal scorer of the Qualifiers so far with ten goals, four goals ahead of Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Majrashi.   Things continued to worsen for the younger Azkals as they lost 9-0 to Vietnam U22s on the 28th June, Nguyen Dinh Bao, Mac Hong Quan, Ngo Hoang Thinh and Le Quoc Phuong each scoring a brace and Huynh Van Thanh grabbing the other goal in front of 6,500 fans.   On the 30^th of June the Philippines’ U22s then took on South Korea and lost 10-0. It is the biggest loss in all the Qualifiers so far with just one group of the seven qualifying groups still to play.   Australia, the top ranked side in the Asian Football Confederation after their switch from the Oceania Football Confederation, will face such teams as Macau and Timor Leste so there may be some reprieve for the Philippines there.   Against South Korea, though, Jeong Jong-Hee, Hwang Ui-Jo, Jwa Joon Hyub and Jeon Byung-Soo all grabbed a brace while Lee Jae-Sung and Choi Ji-Hoon got the other two goals.   The final game for the Philippine team was against Taiwan. With Lin Chang-Iun opening the scoring in the 11th minute and converting a penalty in the 31st minute it seemed like the Philippines were heading for another heavy defeat.   Marvin Angeles managed to pull one back for the Philippines in the 35th minute though and the Philippines U22s headed into half-time just a goal behind. Neither team could break down the other in the second half as the Philippines came close to winning a point in the qualifiers.   The loss meant that the Philippines U22 side lost all five games of the qualifying stage however. With one of the worst records in all of qualifying, the side have come in for very heavy criticism from many camps.   The Philippines conceded the most goals of any side so far, letting in thirty three while the next highest goals against tally is from the Maldives who let in twenty one.   On the attack the Philippines did manage to score twice, though only Pakistan have a worse record as they failed to score at all.   The team came in for very heavy criticism from many people over social media.   Azkals Manager Dan Palami noted that the main reason for the heavy losses is the past failures in grassroots development.   With some people using social media to attack the side, Palami responded in one tweet saying that “for many years our grassroots program had been neglected. Now we have to cope with the backlog.”   In a recent tournament, the Under 14s finished third out of six nations, beating Brunei 3-0 and Malaysia 2-1, drawing with Singapore 0-0 and losing to Indonesia 2-0 and Japan, who won the competition, 4-0.   This is a far cry from the results of the U22s who lost 7-0 to Malaysia by comparison. Some inquest must be done regarding the performance of the U22s who did have the likes of Jeffrey Christiaens, Paulo Pascual, who captained the side, and the Angeles brothers amongst their squad.   Each has experience in the National squad yet the team as a whole did not perform so well.   To catch up with neighboring countries, it would certainly benefit the Philippines to have a permanent coach and manager for each age bracket, this being the common practice in football.   The Azkals management may be stretched too thinly to manage elsewhere, however, and are playing catch up in the other age groups.   It does appear that the PFF tried to begin this process, though, as Serbian Coach Zoran Dordevic briefly took over U21 duties – though after visa problems his contract has not been renewed. — ELR, GMA News