ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK
The Philippine men’s football team could either fashion out a historic achievement on Monday night or see its Asean Mitsubishi Electric Cup campaign come to an end in enemy territory.
“[We have] to go into the game with the right mentality,” midfielder Zico Bailey said as the Filipino side aims for a first-ever final at the expense of Thailand in the second leg of their semifinal tie at Bangkok’s Rajamangala Stadium.
The match is set at 9 p.m. Philippine time (8 p.m. local time) with local football fans to glue in on a potential famous result.
A draw will be enough for coach Albert Capellas to defeat the defending champion War Elephants and secure the country’s biggest achievement in the history of the great Southeast Asian competition.
Sensational strike
But the Philippines, which claimed an incredible 2-1 win in the home leg last Friday at Rizal Memorial Stadium, is still keen on getting more than the desired result and not allow Thailand, still the fancied side, to create an opening for a potential turnaround.
“[The home leg] was the [like the] first final. We checked that box,” said Bailey. “So now, it’s just [like] another final and we treat it the same way we treated this [first leg].”
Sandro Reyes’ sensational strike put the Philippines ahead before defender Kike Linares’ last-gasp header put Thailand in a situation of needing a one-goal win to force two 15-minute extra periods or a two-goal victory to reach the final.
But the Philippines needs to tidy things up in order to put the semifinal ticket in the bag and not put to waste the first-leg result that secured a first win over Thailand in 52 years.
Among those are avoiding mistakes that almost got Thailand ahead in the second half. The War Elephants also managed to score an equalizer off a counterattack and forced the Filipinos to rely on key breaks to seal the victory.
“We want to play a final here [in the Philippines]. So we’ll give everything to play that final,” Reyes said after his Man of the Match honors.
The Philippines will play at Rajamangala for the first time since 10 years ago, when the country also played a second-leg semifinal of the Asean Championship.
The then Azkals flew there having held Thailand to a scoreless tie in the first leg at Rizal Memorial, but found themselves behind early in the return match when they conceded an opening goal.
Turn the tide
Hopes of advancing in that match were still alive since an equalizer could put them past Thailand owing to an away-goals rule which was applicable then. But the War Elephants struck two in the second half, thus ending the Philippines’ 2014 campaign.
The current version of Filipino footballers hope to turn the tide this time.
Meanwhile, Vietnam was looking to seal its place in the final at press time against Singapore in the second leg of the other semis at home. Vietnam went into the match held before home fans in Viet Tri holding a 2-0 lead on aggregate following the first leg in Singapore.
