With time to fix things, Capellas confident PH booters will be better

Bjorn Kristensen (right) scores the only goal in the Philippines' away defeat to Hong Kong on Thursday. —PMNT PHOTO

Philippine men’s football team coach Albert Capellas is hoping that the mental meltdown of Thursday’s tough 3-1 loss in a friendly to Hong Kong is not an ominous sign for them when the Asean Mitsubishi Electric Cup rolls around next month.

The Filipino booters tied it up early in the second half on Bjorn Kristensen’s second international goal, but Hong Kong struck in the 83rd courtesy of Everton Camargo before Matthew Orr produced the insurance score in stoppage time.

“It’s better that these things happened in a friendly game than in a real competition,” Capellas said, as the Philippines opens its Asean campaign on Dec. 12 against Myanmar at home, the first task in the team’s goal to make the semifinals after early exits in the pandemic-delayed 2020 and 2022 editions.

Hong Kong got ahead before the first half added time on Orr’s first goal, but it took just the break and the first three minutes after the restart for Kristensen to knock the tying goal.

To correct errors

Capellas, however, felt that his team didn’t capitalize on that equalizer.

“Football is a mental game, and we have to learn that,” he said. “We started well in the second half, we scored but we dropped again. We didn’t believe that we could have another goal and we should have kept going.

“And the [two] goals were individual mistakes, mistakes that we can repair,” he added after Camargo’s go-ahead score came after beating the defenders and keeper Kevin Ray Mendoza while Orr completed his brace.

Having close to a month before the tournament will allow Capellas to address some mistakes that he felt translated to the setback, even if the Philippines has been left with just one friendly as its planned home match next week with Sri Lanka was scrapped due to the latter’s financial issues.

“We will use that as a learning lesson, and I’m sure my players will do better,” he said. “I’m proud of them because they’re taking risks in a lot of aspects of the game and I prefer to lose like this than in a different way.”