by Kevin Estrada

The Philippines will make sure to be prepared come the ASEAN Championship, as they will take on Sri Lanka in their home friendly on November 19 at the Rizal Memorial in Manila.

With Brunei failing to qualify for the Mitsubishi Electric Cup finals after losing to East Timor in the playoff, the Filipinos got a back-up plan sorted following their away trip to Hong Kong five days prior.

Seeking a return to the semifinals for the first time since 2018, the Philippines is in group B of the tournament proper alongside rivals Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as minnows Laos and Myanmar.

PFF national teams’ director Freddy Gonzalez could not hide his dismay on the last-minute withdrawal of the Wasps, especially in a tight international window wherein there are no higher-ranked squads available.

“It was just really bad timing,” he said during the trophy tour on its final stop in Glorietta. “By the time Brunei canceled on us, we couldn’t find anybody that was available.”

Yet despite the gap in ranking, where the Philippines (148) are 55 places higher than the visiting Golden Army, Gonzalez stressed the need for the team to take any team seriously.

“You can’t take them lightly. They actually have a good team and good players,” he added. “We take it game by game.”

“We make the opponents adjust to us, we don’t adjust to the opponents. I expect Sri Lanka’s gonna come here and fight 1000%, so we have to be ready for that.”

The friendly marked an end to the long wait in those matches between the two sides, as the then-Azkals blanked their South Asian counterparts with a 4-0 rout on the same site in Adriatico to advance to the next round of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

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