Five Takeaways from ESBF: the Philippines vs China post-match review

After 19 months of being inactive in International Football, the Philippine Azkals went out on the pitch with a new look against China but just fell short of a surprise as they lost two goals to nil in their Group A encounter for the joint 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2023 AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers.

The Azkals started with huge promise in the first half of the match, holding the likes of Wu Lei and Ai Kesen to make it a goal-fest and kept it level after 45 minutes. However, the second half was a totally different story for The Dragons as they went out with the full intention to grab the game by its neck.

A late challenge from the debuting Bernd Schipmann on Wu Lei resulted in a penalty which the latter converted rather simply into the bottom right corner on the 57th minute.

The win was sealed off by Wu Xinghan on the 65th minute after a tap-in from the left side of the post which left Schipmann asking questions about how Xinghan found the opening.

With that being said, let's go to the five takeaways from Tito Jay about what he saw in the match.

1) Too little time, too much to accomplish

The Philippine Azkals, in the build-up to its remaining qualifying matches, were in a race against time as they try to assemble the squad that could potentially beat China but the pandemic really made it difficult for the squad.

First, the supposed naturalization of Bienvenido Marañon, a lethal striker that the Azkals have been missing after Phil Younghusband retired and Javier Patiño not being able to suit up with the Azkals since their match against Guam.

Next are the late call-ups. In order to fill in the gap for the players who are supposed to suit up for the Azkals against China, players like Kenshiro Daniels, Manny Ott, and Carli De Murga were called in, however, only Carli and Kenny made it to Sharjah in time.

Despite them being able to suit up for the team, the cohesion was still lacking because of those missed hours in training as well as a tough opponent in front of them.

2. Jefferson Tabinas, the new Secretary of Defense

A lot of threats were thrown at him but he always stood out. Jefferson Tabinas, a 22-year old center-back playing for J2 League side Mito HollyHock debuted for the Philippine Azkals but his performance didn't seem to be from a rookie in the international scene.

He was given a task to mark Wu Lei and after the match, we could say that he was still in his pocket. When asked about his thoughts of his opposite number, he said "I don’t know if it’s okay to say this but it was easy for me because I had in my mind a more special striker but there was nothing like that."

With all the balls going in for China, Tabinas' positioning and agility made it look easy for the Azkals to fend off the remaining attacks of the opposition. After the match, he was easily the man of the match on everyone's lips.

"Terrific defending from Tabinas."

"Man is a beast. A great defender"

"Impressive debut so far."

"The best CB the Azkals ever had, and it's just his debut!"

These are just some of the tweets we've seen about Jeff's performance against China. He even earned a new position as the secretary of defense of the country.

It was just one game but that performance was worthy of many more international caps for a very long time. As the fans said after that night, the Azkals defense are in good hands thanks to the likes of Tabinas and company.

3. The off-season fitness is showing We are just months or maybe weeks away from the opening of the Philippines Football League brought to us by Qatar Airways. And as good as this is for us who had been waiting for a long time, this would also mean that the players themselves haven't had any matches to keep them fit. The early substitutions and injuries that we saw in-game were the most visible evidence of this. The pandemic hit us really, really hard. Stadiums were closed, no places to train openly, and the fact that most of us were forced to stay indoors has taken its toll on not just the clubs, but the national team itself. 4. Despite these handicaps, we threatened On paper, it was said that China would enter the game as favorites. But in the tradition of our beloved game, football never really follows what's on paper. Looking back at the game, we started as the side who tried to threaten their net early. We found spaces that their defenses never got to cover up. And we almost made them pay a few times. As a matter of fact, it almost seemed that we were about to do the impossible. But our rivals finally found their footing, winning a penalty, and finding the cracks in our defense in the second half. I don't know about you guys, but their performance against China has given us a lot of things to hope for. 5. We will get better I wonder what would have happened have these handicaps not been there. Could we have sustained our momentum and kept the fight going all the way to the final whistle? Could we have taken the fight to China, and maybe even do an upset of a lifetime? Who knows. Right now all of these will just be afterthoughts and speculations of what-ifs. What we need to do now is look forward, remember our lessons, and forget our losses. One thing that these guys have shown throughout the game is the heart. If they take it to the next fight, along with everything we learned, we believe we're still a force to be reckoned with. Just as the saying goes, "there's no other way but up." Keep fighting, Azkals.