MANILA – The Philippine men’s football team’s impressive defensive play against South Korea last Monday has come back to haunt them in their 0-3 loss to China in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup on Friday night at Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Azkals striker Philip Younghusband said in an interview published at AFC Asian Cup website that his teammates’ fatigue was evident since the start and it became harder for them when the Chinese notched their first goal.
“A lot of the players looked a bit leggy and tired because of the effort put in against Korea Republic,” Younghusband said. “When you are tired, and you go 1-0 down after 40 minutes, everything seems a bit further and a bit slower.”
He added: “I definitely think the performance we put in against Korea Republic, especially the defensive side, took its toll against China. Once China got the first goal it was always going to be difficult.”
Younghusband continued: “Against Korea Republic we were able to keep it at 0-0 until around the 70th minute, but with China scoring in the first half it made things harder for us. You start to chase the equalizer and lose spaces and lose discipline. And good teams are able to exploit that.”
Even with the loss, the Azkals still have a chance to advance to the round-of-16 with a win over Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday evening and hope for a favorable results from the other group to become one of the four best third-placed teams.
“We have to win the next game,” Younghusband said. “We don’t have to go gung-ho at the beginning, but we know at some point we have to go for it. We’ve got 4-5 days before the next game, so we’ll have time on the training pitch to prepare for the game.”
“It will be a difficult game and they have some players we’ll need to watch out for, but we’ll now have time to prepare for all those things ahead of the match,” added the Azkals’ veteran./PN
