AZKALS COACH EAGER TO PLAY CHINA
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 22 Mar 2012
Philippine Azkals coach Michael Weiss is eager to face China in a Philippine Independence Day match at the Rizal Memorial Stadium on June 12 as part of a possible three-game stint with teams from Indonesia, Vietnam or Thailand on June 5 and 8 which are FIFA playdates.
Weiss welcomed the initiative of Philippine Football Federation president Mariano ?Nonong? Araneta and Azkals team manager Dan Palami in arranging the matches. Weiss said ?this is very good? even as he welcomed the plan to play one game, possibly against Vietnam or Thailand, in Bacolod City which is a hotbed of football.
Weiss said the Azkals ?will be very strong? since the lineup will include Stephan Schrock, Dennis Cagara, Jerry Lucena. Paul Mulders and Neil Etheridge and possibly Manny Ott reinforcing the bronze medal winners in the recently concluded AFC Challenge Cup where explosive striker Phil Younghusband scored six goals to win the coveted ?Golden Boot? award.
Weiss told the Manila Standard that he had coached China?s under 20 squad some eight years ago and ?I know all these players and perhaps eight or nine players will be from the under 20 pool.?
The Azkals coach said China ?is a very good team, no question? even though they failed to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, finishing third in their group behind Iraq and Jordan although they beat Jordan 3-1 in a no-bearing game.
Meantime, Weiss said that one of the reasons for the Philippine Azkals failing to make it to the Challenge Cup finals aside from the absence of key players Jason Sabio, James Younghusband and Angel Guirado in the semi final game against Turkmenistan which the Philippines lost 2-1 after holding on to a 1-0 lead going into the 80th minute, was ?the lack of physical fitness.?
He said ?the only reason why this is there is because I don?t have a team which was promised us from the 9th of January until the end of the tournament more or less with some adjustments for club commitments which is understandable, but it never happened like that.?
Weiss lamented the fact that from January 9 to the departure for Dubai on February 7 he had the team for ?not more than six to eight days.?
The German coach said that during the Dubai training camp ?we were able to work a little bit on physical fitness but I was readying them for match fitness there. I gave them three hard matches and they performed very well, they had to play defensively strong and we pushed through it. We got a little physical fitness there, but not too much.?
He noted that when they returned from Dubai ?some players like Angel Guirado and his brother and Carli de Murga had to immediately play a league match and they had no holiday whatsoever.?
Weiss said despite the lack of preparation they achieved a minor miracle in Nepal under difficult circumstances even as he stressed that ?if we had the preparation like I had last year, we would have played in the finals (in Nepal) and played in top fashion.?
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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