Azkals: Challenge Cup semis may surpass Suzuki Cup feat

-By Roy Moore (AMD, GMA News)

The 2012 Challenge Cup is possibly the hardest test for the Azkals since their upset of Vietnam in the Suzuki Cup last December 2010.

The Philippines are grouped with the three past winners of the competition: India, Tajikistan and North Korea. They are regarded as the three best teams in the entire competition, including the qualification stages. Here we take a look at how realistic expectations should be ahead of next month’s competition.

North Korea (107) and Tajikistan (140) are ranked above the Philippines (157) in FIFA rankings, while India (158) has comfortably won their last four games and may well challenge for second in the group based on form.

ELO ratings are often more realistic and given that North Korea, Tajikistan and India are ranked at 87, 142 and 146 respectively, the Philippines’ ranking at 178 in the world shows the gulf in development in the regions.

The ELO standings also offer an interesting comparison of the Philippines’ future opponents in the Challenge Cup and their past opponents in the Suzuki Cup: North Korea are 51 places above Vietnam, Singapore are one notch above Tajikistan while India are 37 places above Myanmar.

Similar circumstances

To qualify from the group stage would be a huge achievement. The Philippines are once again clear underdogs, and reaching the semifinals would equal, maybe even surpass, reaching the semifinals of the Suzuki Cup, especially as qualification was much harder.

While North Korea are clear favorites, Tajikistan also beat Myanmar in their last encounter and India is developing quickly and are coming into the tournament on the backend of a run of good form.

The Philippines are facing a big challenge and the rest of the world expects the country to finish bottom of the group. None of the teams are expecting to pick up anything against North Korea and so who qualifies for second will likely be determined by the games between Tajikistan, India and the Philippines.

Asian football landscape

The Asian Football Confederation divides nations in Asia into three classes: developed, developing and emerging. Developed nations are the best football countries in Asia. Developing nations are close behind, and then emerging nations are more like the minnows of Asian football.

It is no surprise that the top teams in Asia dominate the Asian Cup, the premier tournament in Asian football. The Philippines, for example, classified as an emerging nation, were drawn in a group Tuesday with South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Taiwan for the Under-22 version of the Asian Cup.

The Challenge Cup was therefore created to give more experience to the emerging sides, with the Philippines, Palestine and Nepal as the emerging nations that managed to qualify for the final stage of eight teams.

But qualifying alone for the Challenge Cup is already a very successful achievement for the Philippines, who are also the only team in Asia to have gone through the first and second round of qualification to reach the finals. Five non-emerging nations currently compete in the tournament and the only one not to qualify for the final stage was Myanmar, who the Philippines drew 1-1 with in their group and have recently replaced as the sixth seed in South East Asia for Suzuki Cup tournaments.

Targets

With captain Aly Borromeo missing the competition due to a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in his knee, Chieffy Caligdong unsure of fully recovering in time from what is suspected to be a strained lateral ligament and many Filipinos in foreign leagues unavailable due to club commitments, the Azkals squad is slightly depleted.

Manager Dan Palami and Coach Weiss have also noted the lack of preparation time but are still optimistic about the tournament.

Palami has said “Our target is the semifinals and our dream is to become champions.” He added, however, “realistically, in the position that we are right now, we can’t dream too much.”

While reaching the semifinals may be the target, not reaching the semis wouldn’t necessarily be a failure. A failure would be losing heavily in all three matches and to be clearly outclassed. Realistically, the best the Azkals can do now then is to head on to their training camp, prepare as best as possible and fight tooth and nail in Nepal. With a bit of luck, they may be able to cause an upset in Asia.

The Azkals lost their first game of the tour in the Middle East 3-0 against the Uzbekistan Under-23s in Dubai but bounced back in Qatar Monday night, beating club team Al Ahli 3-1.

The Philippines will fly back to Dubai to face the Australia Under-23s on February 16 in preparation for the Challenge Cup starting March 8th.