MANILA – Ilonggo Jovin Bedic earned another national team call-up.
He will be part of the Philippine Azkals team that will face Oman in a FIFA international friendly match on Saturday in Doha, Qatar.
This is the third straight national men’s football stint for the Iloilo City native Bedic after being tapped in the Bahrain friendly match and in the Bangabandhu Cup in Bangladesh recently.
Also in the team are Ceres Negros’ Martin Steuble, Paul Mulders, Kevin Ingreso, Manuel Ott, Mike Ott, Amani Aguinaldo, Curt Dizon, and Patrick Reichelt, Davao Aguilas’ Simone Rota, Adam Tull, Dennis Villanueva, Phil and James Younghusband.
Others in the lineup are foreign-based players Neil Etheridge, Michael Falkesgaard, Stephen Palla, Daisuke Sato, Iain Ramsay, Luke Woodland, Javier Patiño, Alvaro Silva, Amin Nazari, and John Patrick Strauss.
The scheduled friendly match between the two teams will be the first time in 17 years that the 114th ranked Azkals tangles with Oman, which is ranked 85th in the latest FIFA Rankings.
The previous meeting between the two teams was during the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea-Japan Qualifiers in May 2001, where the Philippines lost both matches 0-2 and 0-7 respectively.
The Azkals used the friendly game as part of their preparation for the 2018 AFF Suzuki Cup later this year and the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019./PN
