Atin Ito First Filipino Community Newspaper in Ontario
MANILA, Philippines — Neil Etheridge, Mike Ott and Bienvenido Maranon will be headlining the 26-man roster of the Philippine Azkals in their first two matches of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers at home, the Philippine Football Federation said.
Etheridge will be the Azkals’ captain.
Aside from Ott and Maranon, the Azkals will field Daisuke Sato, Kevin Ray Hansen, Patrick Deyto, Simone Rota, Carlos Martinez de Murga, Jefferson Tabinas, Christian Rontini, Jesse Curran, Santiago Rulico, Dennis Villanueva, Simen Lyngbo, Pocholo Bugas, Jose Porteria, Manuel Ott, Oskari Kekkonen, Kevin Ingreso, Mikel Baas, Patrick Reichelt, Audie Menzi, Marwin Angeles, Jesus Melliza, Kenshiro Daniels and Stephan Schrock.
The Philippines will be facing Vietnam on November 16 and Indonesia on November 21.
Both games will be played at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium in Manila.
Head coach Michael Weiss said that he based his selection on player availability, as well as the last five FIFA International Friendly matches against Nepal, Chinese Taipei, Afghanistan and Bahrain earlier in the year.
“It’s a good mixture of experienced mainstays for a long time and young well-developing talents brought on by the recent performances of Philippine clubs in AFC competitions,” Weiss said.
“It gives us reason to be optimistic for our first World Cup qualifier matches against Vietnam and Indonesia,” he added.
The PFF launched the campaign #StandYourGround and #10KStrong as they encouraged fans to support the team.
“A very important factor is the enthusiasm and support of the 12th man. We hope the fans come in numbers to the stadium, and be part of history,” Weiss said. — Ralph Edwin Villanueva
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Credit belongs to: www.philstar.com
