Gritty Filipinas push Wales to the edge despite a close defeat

Photo Credits: The Philippine Football Federation / Philippine Women's National Football Team

A goal from the penalty spot became the only thing that would get past the Philippines as the Filipinas debut in the 2023 Pinatar Cup but that wouldn't mean that the upcoming World Cup debutants would produce a lackluster performance.

To the surprise of Wales, the Philippines went out with a brick wall of defense after a multitude of attacks from the Lady Dragons went wayward or well-defended. Dominique Randle proved to be an imposing figure at the back after she made the most game-defining deflections to prevent Cymru from pulling away.

Despite conceding a penalty at the stroke of halftime through a foul on Rhiannon Roberts inside the box, Randle would pick herself up and continue to provide a solid performance from the back. Filipinas' head coach Alen Stajcic said, "Dom herself had a strong game defensively."

Usually, Stajcic, regardless if they win or not, always looks into the things the team needs to improve on rather than look at the moral victories earned inside the pitch but last night was a bit different. "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.”

He also took into account that the Filipinas were just trying to get back to their usual form as they are kicking off the year in a huge tournament that features high-caliber nations in preparation for their 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup campaign.

Stajcic said, "For us to be in pre-season 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 (women’s) 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 Filipinas will now reset and prepare for their encounter against rank number 25 in the world Scotland who lost their opening match in the Pinatar Cup against Iceland. The match will be played on Saturday, February 18, 2023, at 10 PM Manila time.