THE Philippines’s men’s national football team finished its tumultuous year with a 129th overall ranking in the latest International Football Federation (Fifa) world rankings.
The Azkals, who started the year with their highest-ever rank at 127, managed to go home with runner-up finishes in their three major tournaments this year under the tutelage of new Head Coach Thomas Dooley.
The team managed to maintain its lofty standing in international football, mainly due to their revitalized activity on the pitch with regular friendlies against top-notch international squads that added mileage to their experience on the pitch.
However, their added experience from friendlies had not translated to key wins, as they fell against tough challengers in the final rounds of their major appearances in international competition
In May the national booters bowed to Palestine, 1-0, in the final round of the last edition of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Challenge Cup. A few months later, they fell prey to the Raddy Avranovic-mentored Myanmar side in the four-team knockout Philippine Football Federation Peace Cup in September.
Then, earlier this December, the Azkals produced their best-ever standing at the end of the group stages in the Asean Football Federation Suzuki Cup, before being bounced out in the home-and-away semifinals yet again, this time by eventual champion Thailand.
In Group A of the tournament, the Azkals won their first two games, including a dominant 4-0 win against Indonesia that ended their long-standing torment against one of Southeast Asia’s traditional powerhouses to book their place in the semifinal round.
But Thailand, backed by a strong youth movement fresh from an Asian Games stint, drew on local fan support in the second leg to pull off a 3-0 sweep of the Philippines to continue the Azkals’ frustration in the biennial meet.
Come 2015, however, the Azkals will have a long and arduous road to the 2018 Fifa World Cup when they will be part of the expanded pool of national squads that will compete for spots in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, where qualification for both tournaments have been fused together.
Under the new format, only 12 out of the 46 eligible squads will make it after three rounds of play to compete for the four automatic spots in the quadrennial meet in Russia.
The 12 World Cup hopefuls, plus 12 other teams from the 24 next best teams that didn’t make it in the third round of World Cup qualifying, will comprise of the teams that will compete in the 2019 Asian Cup.