MANILA – Philippine men’s football team head coach Albert Capellas is proud with his team’s gallant stand against Thailand in the ASEAN Mitsubishi Electric Cup semifinals round.
According to Capellas, the Filipino booters made some mistakes in their 3-1 second leg loss to Thailand, but stated that there were plenty of reasons to be proud of his team’s semifinals stint.
“I am very proud of my players,” Capellas said in a post-game interview “I hope all the Filipinos are also proud and that they enjoyed [the efforts] of our squad. They fought a lot.”
Capellas also expressed hope that their performance would inspire more support from fellow Filipinos as well as from the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) for their upcoming tournaments this year.
“And I hope we get the support from the federation, from the government, and from the people who love football to help us grow football in the Philippines so we will have more games like this,” he added.
Team Philippines settled for three draws against Myanmar (1-1), Laos (1-1), and Vietnam (1-1) before pulling off a 1-0 upset against Indonesia in the group stage to reach the semifinals.
In the opening leg of the two-leg semis round, Team Philippines pulled off a massive 2-1 upset over Thailand, the country’s first victory in 52 years against the Southeast Asian football powerhouse.
In the second leg on Monday, Thailand surged to a 2-0 start, but Philippines responded with a conversion from Bjorn Kristensen to level the aggregate score at 3-3, sending the semis series to an extra time.
Thailand then completed their come-from-behind victory with a conversion from Suphanat Mueanta in the extra time, reaching the championship series against Vietnam./PN
