The Philippines’ Hali Long cekebrates adter beating co-host New Zealand for the country’s first-ever FIFA Women’s World Cup. PFF photo
Filipinas back in harness
THE Philippine women’s football team is back in harness with a week-long training camp starting on August 23 at the Rizal Memorial Stadium.
The open training session will be part of an intense amp which will give the Filipinas’ Australian coach Mark Torcaso the opportunity to assess top local prospects alongside some national team regulars.
The camp will feature a selection of 25-30 standouts and is expected to be a rigorous week of training under Torcaso’s watch.
“The main objective of the upcoming camp is for the coaching staff to build our local player pool and to provide our local players the opportunity to be seen and assessed by the coaching staff. This is very important, as we need our locally based players to be aware of the game model we are building for the Philippine Women’s National Football Team. In the case that any of them are called up, they will be ready to perform,” said Philippine senior national teams director Freddy Gonzalez.
To support Torcaso in the camp, Gonzalez has added resources from the Philippine men’s national football team.
South African Riedoh Berdien, and Filipino trainer Aris Andrey will now be a part of the women’s team staff to aid in building a fitness program for the entire squad.
“We have a lot of talented local players who are capable of playing in the National Team. The gap between the locally-based and those playing abroad primarily lies in the difference in strength and conditioning. So starting with this camp, Riedoh Berdien and Aris Andrey will handle the Strength and Conditioning of the Women’s Team as well,” Gonzalez said.
“They will implement programs for our locally based players so that they will be up to par with the strength and conditioning of their overseas based counterparts. Riedoh will be handling the overall programs of both the Men’s and Women’s teams and Aris will be implementing and monitoring the progress of all the local based players,” the former national team standout added.
The Filipinas, who made history in their FIFA Women’s World Cup debut last year and are the defending AFF champions, will take part in friendlies in the last three months of the year.
