Familiar foes will greet the Philippine Men’s National Football Team in the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers as the Azkals were drawn alongside Southeast Asian rivals Vietnam and either Indonesia or Brunei.
The Philippines were drawn to Group F of the Asian zone qualifiers starting November, which also screens the final teams for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup.
The best team in the group based on world ranking is number 70 Iraq, veteran of the 1986 World Cup finals and current champions of the Gulf Cup.
Vietnam, runner-up of the 2022 ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Mitsubishi Cup, is the second seed in the group, ranked 95th in the world.
World number 150 Indonesia, embattled by a recent FIFA suspension, is the favorite to win their first round home-and-away against world number 191 Brunei.
Indonesia lost to Vietnam, 0-2 on aggregate, in the Mitsubishi Cup semifinals but its under-22 team snagged the gold medal in the just concluded Southeast Asian (SEA) Games with a 5-2 blaster versus Thailand.
If the Garudas go past Brunei, the world number 135 Azkals are the least favored come November due to a steep decline in performance for the past year after failing to qualify for the 2023 Asian Cup.
After the second departure of long time head coach Thomas Dooley, the Azkals had three managerial changes in Spaniard Coco Ferre, Moroccan Bare Jrondi, and the returning German mentor Hans-Michael Weis.
They failed to go past the group stage of the Mitsubishi Cup while the under-22 team, coached by former team captain Rob Gier, likewise got the early boot in the SEA Games.
* * *
