Torcaso happy with productive Dubai camp as Filipinas sweep UAE

April 11 ------ THE Philippine women’s national football team wrapped up its camp in Dubai with a 4-0 drubbing of United Arab Emirates for its second international friendly win of the year. Sara Eggesvik opened scoring for the Filipinas in the 37th minute before Carleigh Frilles (54th) Hali Long, and Chandler McDaniel (74th) also knocked in goals. 

Long, the longtime Filipinas captain, scored her 20th international goal in the match. McDaniel scored a brace in the Philippines’ 4-1 win over UAE in the first match of their friendlies held at the UAE Football Association headquarters. “To score eight goals in the last two games is very good,” said Philippines head coach 

Mark Torcaso. “Lots of different goal scorers as well which is good for us. “But again it’s about building on the way we want to play and hopefully in the highlights you’ll see the really good goals we scored. Really pleased with how the girls played in the last two games,” Torcaso said. 

The UAE camp is part of the Filipinas’ build-up for the Asian Cup qualifiers that will be held across different international windows, the AFF MSIG Serenity Cup to be held on a date still to be determined, and the Southeast Asian Games in December. Torcaso said the UAE camp and the matches against their national team was productive since the squad is defensive oriented, the same qualities of the Filipinas’ opponents in the Asian Cup qualifiers. “We need to understand that we’re going to play in the Asian Cup Qualifiers, and we’re going to be playing teams like this that are defensively very good. So playing UAE now is extremely good because, we’re going to come up against Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Saudi Arabia. “They’re going to do the same thing in the Qualifiers, so we wanted to be prepared for that. We stayed disciplined, we stayed patient. The girls were very good in possession, and we scored some really good goals. It’s about building towards the Asian Cup qualifiers and we’re really looking forward to that,” Torcaso said. 

Source: spin.ph