Dream run ends, but Pinay booters will go home with heads held high – Tempo – The Nation’s Fastest Growing Newspaper

By JONAS TERRADO

The historic run of the nationwide girls’s soccer crew got here to an finish after dropping to South Korea, 2-0, Thursday, Feb. 3 within the semifinals of the AFC Ladies’s Asian Cup on the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports activities Complicated in Pune, India.

South Korea took the lead 4 minutes into the competition on Cho So Hyun’s header earlier than Son Hwa Yeon added a second purpose within the thirty fourth because the clock struck midnight on the Pinay booters after a Cinderella marketing campaign within the continental match.

However being denied a spot within the closing is not going to take away the ecstasy of claiming a historic berth in subsequent yr’s FIFA Ladies’s World Cup which the Philippines did in its dramatic quarterfinal win over Taiwan that wanted a shootout.

Now the main target shifts on making ready the crew for FIFA’s premier occasion in both Australia and New Zealand, the match’s co-hosts, the place they’ll face a number of the world’s finest soccer nations.

First on the agenda is to work out a brand new take care of coach Alen Stajcic, the person primarily liable for turning the crew right into a aggressive one.

Stajcic’s deal lapsed following the semifinal defeat, and the Philippine Soccer Federation mentioned it should attempt to preserve the Australian accountable for the World Cup squad.

The victors superior to the ultimate on Sunday in opposition to both Japan, the winner of the final two editions, or China.

Cho, who performs for English aspect Tottenham, struck the opener with a header off a set piece that put the Philippines behind early.

The Philippines averted a number of possibilities by South Korea to rapidly prolong its margin, however that didn’t final as Son smashed the second purpose from shut vary off a cross from the left flank by Cho Hyo Joo.

Goalkeeper Olivia McDaniel, one of many heroes of the quarterfinal triumph, saved a number of good possibilities by South Korea so as to add to its purpose tally because the Philippines was capable of preserve the scoreline till the ultimate whistle.

Stajcic, meantime, considers steering the nationwide girls’s soccer crew to its first-ever FIFA Ladies’s World Cup berth as maybe the very best expertise of his teaching profession.

He had guided his residence nation to quarterfinal berths within the World Cup and the Olympics, however Stajcic feels that his debut marketing campaign for the Philippines was a stint like no different.

“That is most likely the very best expertise, I believe, in my teaching profession,” he mentioned. “I’ve been teaching for 20 years and to take this group who’re so devoted, so decided, a lot self-discipline, a lot coronary heart, a lot spirit, contemplating whether or not or to not ever come thus far.

“I don’t assume I’ve ever needed to coach a gaggle that has had so many hurdles to beat, simply in preparation that alone in a match, and to get to this degree and to struggle and compete up till the final kick of a semifinal is actually simply such a outstanding effort.”